In the previous post I looked briefly at the Studio Museum in Harlem, hoping to identify in its conception and institutional component parts an adaptable model by which other institutions could continue to be formed. Of course, SMH has not been the only artist founded organization to come into existence over the past three decades that have sought to reinscribe and expand the boundaries of the art world, making it more accurately reflects the diversity of its histories and various practitioners. SMH is simply one of the more exceptional of those institutions for its ability to continually expand its reach and institutional size without compromising its original artist centered mission. But there have been others. Some are small but extremely effective in the areas they have chosen to address, while at least one other has the potential to match and even surpass the institutional and programmatic reach of SMH. By no means intended to be comprehensive, I've chosen a handful that I believe illustrate how ambitious individuals can come together to reshape the institutional art world terrain.
Readers will pardon me if this very short list seems eccentric and unduly short and biased. There is something to be gleaned from the experiences of each, just as there are numerous others who could be listed here whose formations are also instructive. I am simply using three institutional examples--one small, one large, and one medium sized) that I know best from first hand experience. Feel free to add more to the list, and share their successes and examples with us. Feel free, also, to suggest your own notion of what a 21st century model of an artist's formed institution might look like and what/whose needs it might serve.
GASP ( Gallery Artists Studio Projects)
Founded in 2004 by artist couple Maria Magdalena Campos Pons and Neil Leonard, GASP (Gallery Artists Studio Projects), located in Brookline, MA just a stone's throw from Boston, is a dynamic and ambitious undertaking that proves that artists can set down meaningful institutional roots wherever they find themselves. Conceived as both a commercial gallery with artists studio spaces, the shows at GASP are curated by a wide roster of independent curators from the US and abroad. As such it is as much curatorial laboratory as it is an exhibition and studio space. It has also brought contemporary art to a neighborhood that seldom sees it in its midst, and has thus been a lynchpin in the area's cultural revitalization as a consequence.
Founded in 2004 GASP, "attempts to create a space for artistic exchange where artists will explore and propose new possibilities for contemporary practices, a site for collaboration between disciplines and fields in the contemporary cultural landscape." In addition to the ongoing exhibition program--curated by both American and international curators--GASP has a strong music and performing program as well, called Sonic Arts @ GASP. Programmed by Leonard (himself an internationally renowned musician, sonic artist, and longtime Berklee professor) the series brings a diverse group of musicians and audio artists (established and emerging) to the space and its audience. Leonard has also orchestrated an ongoing international exchange program, sending US musicians to perform abroad, while bring artists worldwide to the States to perform at GASP and elsewhere.
While meeting the demands of their careers--Campos Pons exhibits widely in museums and galleries worldwide, and Leonard tours internationally as well, and they are parents--the two found the time to build this institution from the ground up as a labor of love. Doing everything from demolition, putting up walls, and laying the floors, the two (along with their staff of two) have physically and conceptually built GASP into a small but formidable force in the cultural landscape. I've known Magda and Neil for a number of years, and have made GASP a regular stop when I am in Boston. Most recently I curated an exhibition at GASP, "Are We There Yet," and was able to get a firsthand look at the expert and polished way that they handle all aspects of their operation. It was a wonderful class act all the way. Says Leonard, "An artist wants to have a complete life. You have to be prepared to create that, to fill in areas yourself. Coltrane did that. Mozart and Beethoven rented their own halls. Gaugin exhibited his own work. We have to have this venue." (www397.pair.com/gasp1)
Rivington Place
If any place aspires to build and expand upon the successes and growing ambition of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Rivington Place (located in the Shoreditch section of London) would have to be it. This institution, open since October 2007, celebrates the twenty year vision of the two extraordinary organizations, inIVA (the Institute of International Visual Arts) and Autograph ABP (the Association of Black Photographers) which are housed here. With a newly built building, designed by young black British "starchitect" David Adjaye, Rivington Place is the first newly built public gallery in London since Hayward gallery opened in 1968. The building houses two project spaces for exhibitions, film screenings and talks, a library, an education space, a cafe, studios and workspaces for local creative businesses, as well as inIVA's and Autograph's offices. Rivington Place was adeptly funded initially by a £5.9 million grant made possible through an Arts Council grant, which itslef was created with funds from the local lottery. Rivington Place is the first permanent space dedicated to culturally diverse visual arts and photography in the UK.
I met Mark Sealy, the director of Autograph, in London in 1990. I was impressed at the time with the fact that Sealy--along with founders David A Bailey and other black photographers--had two years earlier established an organization to support the dissemination of works by black photographers through exhibitions, publications, residencies, and exchange programs. We actually met when I was invited (by Kellie Jones, then curator at Jamaica Art s Center) to participate in an exhibition project "US/UK Exchange" that joined black photographers from the US and UK in an exhibition that travelled in both countries along with the artists. I became a member of Autograph's advisory sometime after, and have been continually impressed with the continued institutional expansion that has occurred over the past two decades. I was also quite impressed with the two black film/video collectives, Sankofa and Black Audio and Film Collective that had formed shortly before that moment. I first met filmmakers Isaac Julien and Martina Atille (both founding collective members) during that first visit to London as well.
I was mindful of the fact that nothing comparable to these collectives and Autograph had ever existed in the States to my knowledge. I was mindful, too, of the synergy that seemed to exist between the funding agencies and the arts. A number of this entities were populated by people who either were or had been artists themselves, including Viv Reiss, the influential Arts Council of Britain arts program officer who had earlier been a photographer. Viv was working at Camerawork Gallery (the UK host institution of "US/UK Exchange") when I met her in 1989. She and her partner, photographer Dave Lewis, are part of my long time UK extended "family."
inIVA is currently helmed by Sebastian Lopez, but its founding director was writer and curator Gilane Tawadros, who I first met in 1990 when she was assistant to the Photographer's Gallery then director Sue Davies. Later becoming exhibition program officer at Royal Festival Hall,Tawadros founded inIVA "to create exhibitions, publications, multimedia, education and research projects, and to bring the works of culturally diverse artists to the attention of the widest possible public." Both inIVA and Autograph's boards are chaired by Stuart Hall, the seminal, singular, and significant presence in the arena of cultural studies who has been a major force in mentoring a group of artist and scholars, and who has worked tirelessly to marshall support for both organizations. Hall is also the vice chair of Rivington Place. SMH's Thelma Golden and Henry Louis Gates (the preeminent black cultural theorist and cultural entrepreneur) are also board members, so it is clear that the Black Brits have indeed been studying the success of both institutions and making use of their expertise. Yes, Skip Gates is indeed a one man institution!
After long successful individual histories, the two institutions (inIVA and Autograph) joined forces in planning Rivington Place, their new joint home. Though Rivington Place is a new entity, the strong track record of these two orgaqnizations suggest that it is going to have a major impact, globally, on the institutional positioning of artists of color. It demonstrates an extraordinary coming together or artists, academics, and administrators to that will be a lasting catalyst for the writing and rewriting of cultural histories. (www.autograph-abp.co.uk) (www.iniva.org)
Exit Art
Exit Art's Mission Statement says it best: "Exit Art is an independent vision of contemporary culture prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives. We do experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues. We absorb cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions. We are a center for multiple disciplines. Exit Art is a 25-year-old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo. It has grown from a pioneering alternative art space into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness and consistent ability to anticipate the newest trends in the culture. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art is always on the verge of change."
From its inception Exit Art has been an artists centered space, providing an opportunity for the showing and viewing of works from a wide span of cultural and conceptual arenas. Hybridity was the operative word at Exit Art long before "multiculturalism" became a synonym for tokenism or just another requisite funding category. From David Hammons, to Jimmie Durham, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Jane Hammond, Jerry Kearns, Willie Birch, Tehching Hsieh, Martin Wong, Adrian Piper, David Wojnarowiccz, and numerous others, one would think that the art world did it's "shopping" at Exit Art, moving in to showcase artists who Exit Art first vetted when they didn't need vetting, just an opportunity to show their considerable works. As an institution they have long been fueled by the sensibilities of the two, Colo as groundbreaking iconoclastic performance artist, painter, and photographer and Ingberman as writer, administrator. At various times they have both worn both hats, often simultaneously. It is their combination of irreverence and professionalism that has kept them in the forefront through numerous changing fortunes in the nonprofit art world. Their shows have often had the quality of small museum shows.
Over the years the team has figured out how to continually expand and reinvent itself as the community and culture around it has evolved, and expanding the circle of artists it serves. With a mailing list of some 24,000 they have implemented a process that they call "conceptplus," in which proposals are solicited by e-mail. This has resulted in a process that, "privileges the creation of new work over the presentation of existing work, challenging artists to respond to ideas circulating in the culture at large by providing commision fees and an exhibition venue, making it a highly flexible system ideally adapted to the speed with which political and social changes now sweep through the world. "
Exit Art also produces an ongoing performance program, Exit Underground, which, in addition to live performances, includes film and video screenings, music and other forms of performance work. A continually evolving institution, that has now also trained two generations of art administrators, Exit Art bears close examination for those who want to consider the shape of a 21st century arts institution/organization. (http://www.exitart.org)
While this list could go one, I think you get the idea. Do some research and see who else out there is doing the necessary work of diverse institution building. Models (old and new) are there for the studying. En Foco in New York (founded in NY by photographers Charles Biasiny-Rivera, Roger Caban, and Phil Dante) comes readily to mind. And I hear that independent curators Isolde Brielmaier and Trevor Schoonmaker are hard at work on the Brooklyn Institute of Contemporary Arts. Let me know of the many I know I have missed.
Photographs (from top): Rivington Place, Architect - David Adjaye; GASP founders Magdalena Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard (Derek Kouyoumjian photo); Rivington Place; Exit Art
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