INTRODUCTION

 

But why bother sharing lives? Why not just share studios and chat at the local bar (which we did as well)? Because art shows up in living. If it doesn't show up in living then it's just symbols. [1]

 

The FLAT Gallery, housed in an apartment on Mansfield Road in Durban, South Africa was founded in October of 1993 by the apartment occupants: Ledelle Moe, Niël Jonker, Thomas Barry, and myself (Siemon Allen). Born out of a growing dissatisfaction with the limitations of the existing art scene in Durban and the need to take a more proactive approach in creating exhibition opportunities, the FLAT became a site for exhibitions, performances, multi-media ‘events’, as well as a place for a broad range of creative exchanges. Running parallel[2] to the political developments in South Africa that led to the historical elections of April 1994, the FLAT Gallery boasted 32 exhibitions/events over a period of 16 months, bringing a vital ‘alternative’ voice to the cultural climate of Durban. Young artists, students, recent graduates, as well as established artists and those working outside of institutions were all given the opportunity to participate and all came to explore their work in ways that might not otherwise have been possible in the limited or more restricted conditions that existed in the region’s few established venues.
The FLAT’s mission to promote a vibrant interaction amongst creative individuals began as a project to mount exhibitions without censure and to maintain a free space without the traditional selection system. This policy of unrestricted content and open format, however, also fostered a climate for experimentation and so an environment was created that proved to be fertile with potential for collaboration and interaction. It was a phenomenon that appeared and then evolved out of the creative needs of the artists who founded the project and those who later participated. The FLAT became a site for a kind of creative activity that had been unknown or at least unexplored in Durban at that time.
In addition to being a place for highly experimental programs, the FLAT was an alternative space that operated 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Though the ‘lounge’ served as the main gallery, the apartment occupants often gave up their living spaces for special events. The exhibition space doubled as a studio-work site such as the time when a group of young students visiting Durban from a rural area used the space for a day-long impromptu workshop. Openings often led to conversations between artists and viewers that extended well into the night. Without set hours of operation, the FLAT was an informal art space where spontaneity ruled and the lines between the artists’ ‘lives’ and the project’s ‘programmes’ were blurred. What occurred at the FLAT was a breaking down of barriers between art and life - between artists and viewers. In stretching the definition of what exhibition or performance could be, the artists involved with the FLAT gallery discovered that observation and participation could become synonymous.

In this research paper I will begin my examination of the FLAT Gallery by first defining what is meant by an ‘alternative space’ and by looking at the historical development of such spaces both in South Africa and the United States of America.
This will include an investigation into the ideological motivations and socio-political influences behind such spaces as well as an exploration of what is meant by ‘alternative practice’ (which I believe is inseparable from the mission of the ‘alternative space.’) This is by no means a comprehensive survey of alternative spaces in South Africa or the United States, but rather a tracing of the phenomenon with relevant examples.
Through this historical study I will identify important precedents for the FLAT project as well as draw comparisons between the FLAT and other similar venues. I will then examine the particular circumstances that catalyzed the FLAT Gallery in the specific cultural and historical context of Durban, South Africa in 1993 and 1994.
Most importantly, I will construct a chronological documentation of the FLAT Gallery’s programme including interviews and extensive visual and audio archives. With this archival information and with detailed descriptions of each event, exhibition or performance, I will create a ‘geneology’ for the FLAT Gallery by exploring the historical influences and linkages that I believe existed between the FLAT projects and specific examples of artist-motivated projects such as the Cabaret Voltaire and the Situationists.[3]

One might very well ask, “What is significant about the FLAT Gallery and why is it important to document so laboriously such a ‘brief’ flurry of activity?” Some of the material in this paper might offer students, recent graduates and emerging artists useful practical information on the various possibilities for working and exhibiting once one has left the ‘comforts’ of faculty guidance, peer support, studio facilities and venues for showing work that the institutional environment provides. Perhaps more importantly, this ‘story’ might inspire those who read it with an affirmation that there rests in the artist the responsibility to actively build a place where his/her development as a creative individual can flourish; that one must not wait for ‘permission’ or for ‘someone’ to offer validation of one’s work; that it is indeed possible here in Durban to “do something!”
Additionally, I must also confess that my motivations for producing this paper might arise out of some personal need to look back at the FLAT experience and to revisit that project with the distance of time (and I hoped some degree of objectivity). I have asked myself many times, “Why was the experience so important to my growth as an artist at that time? Why was it so important to those of us who were so deeply involved - Moe, Horsburgh, Barry, Gainer, and all the others who passed through and participated?” The experience pushed something in our artists’ lives that we had not encountered before. It opened us up to a particular kind of dialogue and experimentation that was invaluable in the later development of our work. It gave us the courage to explore our art and to live in a manner that was true to the work and not to the market or the conventional notions around us of what ‘art’ should be. It allowed us to develop something (albeit sometimes crude) which was independent of the institution and so gave us confidence in our abilities to take charge of our creative lives. In spite of the (sometimes valid) accusations that the FLAT operation was “unprofessional” or its programmes “incomprehensible”, I believe that it was a valuable part of our education as young artists and that we were operating within the tradition of other important historical precedents. One might ask, “Was the FLAT Gallery just a series of unprofessional displays and immature pranks or was it ‘serious play’?” In revisiting that brief explosion of creative energy I hope to address that question.