Reader Jarem Morrow has sent over a link to an interesting little community on LJ called design_history. A must for any design junkie! In particular, there’s an interesting post about an all-but-forgotten art magazine from Germany called Die Schönheit (Beauty). Poster Nekokaiju on the community has unearthed some covers, and has this to say:

“Die Schönheit was a German magazine that ran through the years 1902-1936. It dealt mainly with the emerging Nacktkultur, Nudist movement. But also featured articles on modern artists, science fiction and sexual aids. It became well known for it’s racy classifieds section. Needless to say, it didn’t last too long after the rise of Nazi Germany.” I couldn’t find much more information on it online, but a book search reveals that Die Schönheit was also one of the first to publish the work of Erich Maria Remarque.

More Covers Here

The last issue of Mondo 2000, featuring Nina Hagen on the cover.

I’m obsessed with dead magazines, especially ones that crossed over into the mainstream. The history of such magazines often sounds like a VH-1 Behind the Music special; first the group’s idealistic creation rises to fame on account of its originality, then comes the inevitable collapse due to in-fighting under the conflicting pressures of appeasing a wider audience, a set of advertisers and the project’s own artistic aims. More often then not, the problem is simply that such a magazine is way ahead of its time. This was the case with Mondo 2000, yet I’m grateful that it existed precisely when it did.

So, what made Mondo 2000 so special? It was, in my opinion, the best alternative culture magazine that America ever had. They wrote about smart drugs, brain implants, virtual reality, cyberpunk, Cthulhupunk and cryogenics. They covered Laibach and Lydia Lunch in the same issue. The pantheon of writers was a force to be reckoned with: Bruce Sterling, Robert Anton Wilson, and William Gibson all lent their talents, and there was even a Burroughs vs. Leary interview face-off. Then there was the famous U2-Negativland interview, in which Negativland, disguised as reporters, interviewed U2 into a corner to reveal the band’s hypocrisy over their lawsuit against Negativland over sampling. All in all, the magazine took risks. “The good dream for me and Mondo,” said editor R.U. Sirius in an interview with Purple Prose, “is overcoming the limits of biology without necessarily leaving sensuality or sexuality behind.” Issue after issue, Mondo 2000 threw a sexy dystopian bash and invited the decade’s best thinkers.