In April, a friend texted me to ask if I was planning to go to Cultured magazine’s “CULT100” party and, if not, whether I wanted to. “No” and “no,” I replied, mostly because I had no idea what Cultured was. A few nights later, my Instagram feed was flooded with pictures from the party, which was held at the Guggenheim a few days before the Met Gala and attended by a mix of buzzy actors, comedians, designers, writers, artists, and art-adjacent personalities. The party celebrated Cultured’s second annual “CULT100” list, a selection of those “actively shaping and changing our culture in real time,” ranging from celebrities like Walton Goggins and Sarah Jessica Parker (both in attendance) to newly discovered artists. The event included a monologue by Saturday Night Live’s Chloe Fineman, a live version of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes, and a reading by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was, in other words, a powerhouse showing for a magazine that didn’t even register a few years ago.

Founded by the editor and art collector Sarah Harrelson, Cultured has actually been around since 2012. “It wasn’t taken seriously — it was seen as a kind of Hamptons party rag, socialite fodder,” said an art journalist. “And then it totally exploded.” It looks kind of like Vogue — chock-full of luxury ads and full-bleed images on high-quality paper, with celebrities increasingly appearing on made-for-Instagram covers — yet it focuses mainly on the art world. Also like Vogue, the journalism isn’t really the point. Cultured is more of a high-end lifestyle brand with a publishing arm and has become known for well-curated events that manage to convene people of influence and book multiple sponsors without feeling cheesy. At the very least, the magazine looks good on a coffee table.

When I suggested people know the magazine more for its image than anything they’ve read in it, Harrelson winced. “I actually feel like people read Cultured a lot,” she said in an interview in Cultured’s Chelsea office. She is also sensitive about the perception that Cultured is a newcomer to the magazine game. “I have a strong relationship with my reader base, and I have a strong relationship with my advertisers,” said Harrelson. “Hermès, Cartier, Chanel — they’ve been with me nine years, every issue.”

But Harrelson, a workhorse of an operator, has made her unique ability to convene different kinds of people, both on the page and at exclusive lunches at her house in Beverly Hills or garden parties in the Hamptons, a hallmark of the enterprise. “I have people come up to me and say, ‘Because of you, I met this person and got a film deal.’ ‘Because of you, I got this museum show,’” she says. Sarah Arison, the president of MoMA’s board, told me, “Sarah has just built up this extraordinary community of people I genuinely want to hang out with. It’s not like, Ugh, I’m going to a dinner. I’m going to be seated next to somebody terrible. She curates, and I love that it’s always a mix of artists and curators and fashion people.”

It can be easy to forget that this is what the magazine business once was, especially for glossier publications. Advertisers want to be associated with beautiful and/or wealthy and/or interesting people, and those people want to flaunt their doings somewhere — like, say, a not-so-hard-hitting........

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