Ian McKay (born 1962) is a British writer, art critic, publisher and translator. A former editor of Contemporary Art magazine, and the founder-editor of The Journal of Geography and Urban Research, throughout the 1990s he was best known for his writings on the arts of Eastern Europe, being cited as the first British art critic to emphasize the negative impact of the western art market in that region. Throughout the 1990s and early-2000s, he was a contributor to a wide range of art journals, as well as writing on subjects relating to photography, cinema, and music. Since 2007 his publishing activities have mainly centred on UK Rural Affairs, and the environment however. Though periodically he continues to publish works of art criticism, his most recent publications concern social justice in rural Britain, as well as environmental conservation in the wider European sphere. He has also worked as an academic in several UK universities. Life and career The son of former National Hunt jockey and racehorse trainer Geoff Laidlaw, Ian McKay was born in Epsom, Surrey, and studied at Chelsea School of Art. His first known publications were a series of punk fanzines in the late-1970s, including Peroxide (from which he was said to have been ousted by Norman Cook for serial incompetence). In the early-1980s he also was founder editor of 'The Irony of Romanticism', a short-lived alternative arts publication. In 1984, with several other writers and filmmakers, he was involved in the setting up of the organisation Music for Miners during the UK Miner's Strike of 1984–1985. He has worked as a critic and writer for art journals internationally, with his work appearing in over thirty countries worldwide. He has also curated visual art exhibitions and for some time was a senior academic in the field of Media and Cultural Studies in the UK. His recent writings largely relate to UK Rural Affairs, particularly in relation to the New Forest, as well as conservation and environmental crime in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Occasionally he still writes on the visual arts. Critical writings McKay began writing on both the visual arts and the environment in the 1980s, and throughout the 1990s was a regular contributor to journals and magazines that included: Apollo; Art Monthly; Arts Review; Artscribe; Computer Weekly; Contemporary Art (for which he was assistant editor); Creative Camera; The Face; Geographical Magazine; The Independent on Sunday; and Private