FMR

It’s a good thing I was sitting on the floor when I started paging through FMR, because I might have fallen right down. As an object, the magazine, dedicated to capturing “the ageless splendor of beautiful perishing things,” is striking–the text is set in classical typeface (Bodoni was a passion of Franco Maria Ricci’s), and there is spread after spread of richly detailed photographs and art reproductions framed by inky, glossy black, conjuring the effect of a spotlight. The first issue in my collection—Vol. V, No. 21—August/September 1986—includes features on Lalique (with an essay by Colette), Donatello (paired with an excerpt of Vasari), Thonet (commentary by Adolf Loos), and the amazingly detailed miniature cities 17th and 18th century war strategists used to plot sieges. FMR is another discovery I owe to Anja, and the more I learn about it, the more my mind melts. It was the passion project of Ricci, who titled it with his initials—read aloud, it’s “éphémère.” FMR was printed in French, German, English, and Italian, and Susan Sontag, Umberto Eco, and Octavio Paz are all listed as advisors in my copy. The whole undertaking seems wildly expensive, completely improbable, and marvelous; even the ads are ridiculously gorgeous. Apparently, Ricci was such good friends with Borges that he promised to build him a massive maze, which opened in 2015. He seems almost like a character out of a dream (or Borges story). This is a snippet from the editor’s letter:

My friends sometimes ask me how, issue after issue, I choose subjects for FMR. It is not easy to answer. Sometimes an exhibition, a restoration, or a new discovery suggests the magazine’s content. At other times it suddenly seems very urgent to present a theme I have been thinking about for years. It is as if an unexpected breeze pushes me in a certain direction, and I cannot help but comply with it.

FMR ran from 1982 to 2009 and relaunched in 2022.