Each issue begins with four of Cabinet's recurring columns. Some columns have (or have had) recurring writers. Some columns appear more frequently than others:
"The Clean Room" is David Serlin's column on science and technology. (First appearance: issue 1.)
"Colors", which appears in every issue, presents a writer or artist's response to a specific color assigned by the editors. (First appearance: issue 1.)
"Leftovers" examines the cultural significance of detritus. (First appearance: issue 1.)
"Thing" invites writers in various fields to take a shot at identifying a single found object not recognizable to the Cabinet editors. (First appearance: issue 12.)
"Inventory" is an occasional column that features and sometimes examines a list, catalog, or register. (First appearance: issue 13.)
"Object Lesson", a column by Celeste Olalquiaga, "reads culture against the grain to identify striking illustrations of historical process or principle." (First appearance: issue 20.)
"A Minor History of," a column by Joshua Foer, examines an overlooked cultural phenomenon using a timeline. (First appearance: issue 25.)
Section 2: Main
The Main section features miscellaneous essays, interviews, and artist projects.
Section 3: Theme
The third, themed section features essays, interviews, and artist projects related to a specific theme. A theme-based CD is included in issues 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13.
Issues and Themes
Issue 1: Invented Languages
Issue 2: Mapping Conversations
Issue 3: Weather
Issue 4: Animals
Issue 5: Evil
Issue 6: Horticulture
Issue 7: Failure
Issue 8: Pharmacopia
Issue 9: Childhood
Issue 10: Property
Issue 11: Flight
Issue 12: The Enemy
Issue 13: Futures
Issue 14: Doubles
Issue 15: The Average
Issue 16: The Sea
Issue 17: Laughter
Issue 18: Fictional States
Issue 19: Chance
Issue 20: Ruins
Issue 21: Electricity
Issue 22: Insecurity
Issue 23: Fruits
Issue 24: Shadows
Issue 25: Insects
Issue 26: Magic
Issue 27: Mountains
Issue 28: Bones
Issue 29: Sloth
Magazine and Book
Though Cabinet is commonly called "Cabinet magazine" and is distributed to newsstands as a magazine (with ISSN), individual Cabinet issues are also distributed as books (with ISBN). Each issue is printed in two editions: one with a magazine barcode on the front cover and the other with a book barcode on the back cover.[1]
Other Projects
In addition to publishing the quarterly, Cabinet also publishes books, curates art-related exhibitions, and stages conferences and live events.
Presidential Doodles: Two Centuries of Scribbles, Scratches, Squiggles & Scrawls from the Oval Office, by Cabinet Magazine and David Greenberg (Basic Books, 2006) ISBN 0-46503266-4
Exhibitions
Cabinet's 2005 exhibition "Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark'sFake Estates," at The Queens Museum of Art and at the White Columns gallery was chosen by The New York Times'sMichael Kimmelman as one of the ten best shows of the year.
In 2005, Cabinet began curating a cabinet of curiosities inside an 8,000-pound safe at Proteus Gowanus, an art gallery in Gowanus, Brooklyn.[2]
In 2003, Cabinet co-produced "The Paper Sculpture Show," a traveling exhibition of 29 paper sculptures, each one devised by a different artist. The sculptures themselves are collected as tear-out, do-it-yourself projects in The Paper Sculpture Book.
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has written, "Cabinet is my kind of magazine; ferociously intelligent, ridiculously funny, absurdly innovative, rapaciously curious. Cabinet's mission is to breathe life back into non-academic intellectual life. Compared to it, every other magazine is a walking zombie."