Art Monthly celebrates its 50th anniversary and 500th issue in October 2026, a milestone the magazine — "fiercely independent since 1976" — is marking with an expanded edition and a fundraiser to secure its future. The anniversary issue's contents include an interview with Barbara Kruger by John Douglas Millar, an interview with Meiro Koizumi by Tom Denman, Francis Frascina on artists combating the decay of truth in reportage, Dan Rees on the expansion of museum franchises as "museums of convenience," Bob Dickinson on art and gore capitalism in Mexico, a profile of Alex Margo Arden, and an editorial drawing parallels between 1976 and 2026 — an oil crisis, massive government debt, and the hottest summer on record — while noting new pressures such as artists' student debt and rising living costs. Special 50th-anniversary artist pages feature Janice Kerbel, John Smith, Alfredo Jaar, Rosalind Nashashibi, Isaac Julien, and Ed Atkins. The issue's Artnotes survey UK arts policy developments, including the reversal of a pledge to repatriate the Parthenon Marbles, a study on Brexit's income losses for UK and EU arts, the Science Museum's end of its 25-year BP sponsorship, and debates over artists' basic income schemes. To celebrate, the magazine has made 50 articles from its back catalogue free to read until the end of 2026 and launched the AM50 fundraising campaign seeking £50,000 to secure the publication's future. The anniversary issue also continues the magazine's editorial infrastructure: its 50-year Artlaw column, in which Henry Lydiate has tracked the magazine's history since 1976, runs a retrospective on censorship across the decades, and the Edinburgh Art Festival x Art Monthly Writer's Award publishes a new text responding to the 2026 festival. To mark the milestone, Art Monthly has opened 50 articles from its back catalogue to free reading until the end of 2026 and launched the AM50 fundraising campaign, seeking £50,000 to secure the publication's future as a registered charity.