On edge: alternative spaces today - alternative art museums and galleries - Column

Hard-hit by dint of financial and leadership woes, alternative spaces are struggling to survive. a certain number of have failed.

Last winter I received sum of two units startling missives from alternative spaces: an invitation to discuss Franklin Furnace's revised mission as a virtual organization upon Feb. 4 and a pres release announcing the demise of Randolph public way Gallery on Feb. 13. The freshs about Randolph Street Gallery was personally saddening. I'd worked with the Chicago space upon its production of Antonio Muntadas's File expanse (1994), the pioneering on-line archive of social and cultural censorship. Franklin Furnace's situation is more ambiguous. The meeting to which I was invited was called to discuss the novel York organization's new cyber-orientation--visionary or elitist? Although a healthy debate ensu I left interested that this well-intentioned group of arts professionals hadn't a ball of thread about creating opportunities for artists in a radically reconfigured turn-of-the-21st-century art world.

Pondering a certain quantity of recent developments in alternative-space history, my touchs mounted: N.A.M.E. (in Chicago) and WPA (Washington shoot forward for the Arts) went bankrupt in 1996 (The latter was absorbed by dint of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.) San Francisco's Capp way Project is closing its space, in part because establisher Ann Hatch's philanthropic priorities have shifted. (Its residency program is being incorporated into the exhibition program of the California community of Arts and Crafts.) The Alternative Museum in novel York hasn't paid employee salaries since last fall, according to its planter Geno Rodriguez, who termed the past year "our worst time ever" Roberto Bedoya, head of the National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO), the alternative spaces' lobbying organization in Washington, annotateed that "there's a kind of malnutrition or fading away. Many organizations are doing far les programming than they used to and a certain number of like COCA [Seattle's Center upon Contemporary Art], LACPS [Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies] and LACE [Lo Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions] are really stressed" Although spaces like Hartford's Real Art Ways and fresh York's Artists Space are thriving, the alternative art view en masse, is in crisis. As Peter Taub, the former executive director of Randolph road Gallery, put it: "It's desperate on the outside there. The field is generally defined by adversity." Has an era already ended?

The adversity identified through Taub assumes at least three forms: generational change, the tillage Wars and a decade of public disinvestment, and ill-considered foundation mandates. single the first of the three could have been anticipated nearly three decades ago when alternative spaces emerg as a novel phenomenon. The first of these small nonprofit organizations initiated by means of and for visual artists appeared in fresh York in 1969 and 1970 with the founding of 98 Greene road Apple and 112 Workshop (a.k.a. 112 Greene road and now White Columns). For many of us baby boomer at least, the terminus "alternative space" remains synonymous with the network of seemingly institutionalized spaces like as San Francisco's New Langton Arts, Houston's DiverseWorks, Buffalo's Hallwalls, Atlanta's Nexus Contemporary Art Center novel York's Kitchen and San Diego's Sushi, to mention sole a few.

more [i]or[/i] less came into being with a little help from friends within the "establishment." fresh Langton Arts (then 80 Langton St) for instance, was grounded in 1975 and originally stocked by the local art dealers' association, and Artists Space lay opened its doors in 1973 as a cast of the New York State Council upon the Arts. For artists of the '70 the novel alternative spaces offered virtually the sole venues for the development of conceptually oriented, noncommercial forms of that kind as video, installations and actions (the limit "performance art" wasn't commonly used until the late '70s) This conceptualist bent separated alternative spaces from artists' cooperative galleries, usually commercial spaces where artists banded together to exhibit traditional-format work and collectively pay the crack Nontraditional curatorial practices also characterized the novel alternative spaces: most relied upon artists to curate shows, rather than professional curators. And, greatest in quantity radical of all, artists received pay s for exhibiting.

Not each space fits this general original and sometimes appearances can deceive. The Drawing Center in SoHo for example, at hands an annual historical show, and boasts an elegant loft space and a well-heeled board of directors. It may not direct the eye like an alternative space, on the contrary according to departing executive director Ann Philbin, it is. "The majority of our present to views are artistcurated and we pay fees" Other organizations, like P 1 and the novel Museum of Contemporary Art, have evolv into full-fledg kunsthalles, that is, contemporary art museums which don't build permanent collections. The NAAO roster now lists more than 700 filled and associate members that range widely from established institutions (such as Rochester's Visual Studies Workshop) and publications (Atlanta's Art Papers) to their far smaller counterparts similar as Los Angeles' VIVA! Lesbian and Gay Latino Artists and Art FBI (Artists For a Better Image), Jeff Gates's publication-oriented, artist-advocacy operation. The NAAO alone requires that its members be nonprofits devot to contemporary art and committed to guaranteeing artists the one and the other policy-making roles and fees for presenting their work. Today, an artists' organization may be as plenteous a mind-set as anything other and not necessarily a physical space.