Alternative exhibition space

An alternative exhibition space is a location, et al. other than the normal professional venues, for the exhibition of artwork to the public. Located in places which have been converted, such as a store front empty space into an exhibit space, for an organized assembly of artworks from an individual or group of artists. According to art advisor Allan Schwartzman "alternative spaces were the center of American artistic life in the '70s."[1]

Alternative exhibition spaces emerged in the wake of art practices in the 1960s and 1970s that reacted against the presumed neutrality of the "white cube" gallery space.[2] The first wave of alternative spaces in the United States occurred in the 1970s,[3] with many dating the start of the tendency from 1970, when 112 Greene Street[4] was founded in New York and with the early curatorial work of Alanna Heiss.[5] The Kitchen was established in New York in 1971. A.I.R. Gallery opened in September 1972 as an alternative space women's co-op gallery. Bonnie Sherk's Crossroads Community (The Farm), another early alternative space, was established in San Francisco in 1974.[6] Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Connecticut, was founded in 1975.[7]

Alternative spaces emerging in the US after 1975 tended to focus on new media, diversity and performance work.[4] For instance, Franklin Furnace in New York was established in 1976 by Martha Wilson to exhibit performance work.[8] LACE in Los Angeles and Washington Project for the Arts showed performance and video work. One of the most enduring alternative spaces in New York was P.S 1, founded in 1976.[2] Randolph Street Gallery (RSG) was an artists' run gallery space in Chicago beginning in 1979, Exit Art in Manhattan opened in 1982.

By the late 1980s alternative spaces in the US were well funded by the NEA and well established within the international artworld,[9] but NEA funding dried up in the 1990s, contributing (along with rising rents) to the decline of the alternative space movement.[10]

References

  1. ^ Quoted by Brian Wallis, Public Funding and Alternative Spaces in Julie Ault, Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985, University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p165. ISBN 0-8166-3794-6
  2. ^ a b Sharon Macdonald, A Companion to Museum Studies, Blackwell publishing, 2006, p234. ISBN 1-4051-0839-8
  3. ^ Robert Atkins, On edge: alternative spaces today, Art in America, Nov, 1998, p2.
  4. ^ a b Brian Wallis, Public Funding and Alternative Spaces in Julie Ault, Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985, University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p165. ISBN 0-8166-3794-6
  5. ^ Goldstein, Andrew M (May 2, 2008). "The Principal of P.S.1: Can Alanna Heiss’s vision for her museum outlast her?",New York Magazine, recovered on March 19, 2009.
  6. ^ Peter Selz, Art of Engagement, University of California Press, 2006, pp229-230. ISBN 0-520-24053-7
  7. ^ Robert Atkins, On edge: alternative spaces today, Art in America, Nov, 1998
  8. ^ Kristine Stiles, Peter Howard Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, University of California Press, 1996, p693. ISBN 0-520-20251-1
  9. ^ Brian Wallis, Public Funding and Alternative Spaces in Julie Ault, Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985, University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p162. ISBN 0-8166-3794-6
  10. ^ Brian Wallis, Public Funding and Alternative Spaces in Julie Ault, Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985, University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p164. ISBN 0-8166-3794-6