NEW ALTERNATIVES

One of the most significant aspects of the alternative scene is the way in which it has continued to reinvent itself...whatever is established as an option to the institutionalization of the museum or the commercial gallery structure eventually becomes “establishment” in some way, and insures-or mandates a new ‘alternatives’. When the first great wave of alternative spaces began to appear during the mid-70s, one heated topic of discussion was whether the word ‘alternative’ modified the organizational structure or the art presented by the space. Today of course, it seems that the word must qualify both. As times change, the terms that define an organization or ideas as ‘alternative’ evolve with it.[1]

Emerging from the 80s, alternative spaces in the USA were faced with a critical need to change with the climate. Public funding had been cut severely and many of the alternative spaces found themselves top heavy with large staffs, cumbersome long-range programming and expensive spaces to maintain. As they had begun to resemble institutions, so the institutions had begun to offer programming that appropriated their missions.

The cultural and economic climate in which they originally cast themselves no longer exists. Artist’s organizations have watched as elements of their look, missions, and programming have been slowly adopted by larger institutions.[2]

In the same way that an alternative practice, by definition, must continually reinvent itself; its practitioners constantly moving beyond the old art forms and looking critically at the messages they convey, the alternative space to stay vital must also evolve. With the crisis in the late 1980s, the evolution of many alternative spaces in the United States was marked by a shift back to the ‘basics’ of artists’ initiatives. For many, this was a response to the financial realities of scarce funding, but the change also spoke to what had been become a lack of the artists’ direct engagement in the conception and the running of the alternative venues and a need to explore new models for ‘alternative’ practice.
In conversation with Meredith Tromble, Michael Damm, artist and curator/founder of San Francisco’s Victoria Room, spoke to the conditions that led to the surge of artists run spaces in the 90s:

... in part a national phenomenon. It emerged in the aftermath of the 1980s collapse of the market and the decline of the non-profits (the alternative spaces of the 70s).[3]

Consistent for most of the so called ‘new alternatives’ that began operating in the 90s was the rejection of what was seen as the encumbrance of boards, committees, long range programming and most of all expensive real estate. Central to the re-evaluation of the ‘alternative’ was also the role played by the dynamics of funding. The government and corporate funding that contributed to the growth and perhaps institutionalization of the early alternatives became scarce in the late 80s and many involved in creating ‘new alternatives’ expressed skepticism of the implicit controls that came with such ‘support’.
There was then a need to come full circle back to the beginning. To reconnect to the original spirit, if not the form, of the alternative spaces in the 70s. Four Walls, an alternative space in Brooklyn, New York, began as a series of ‘open studios’ and evolved into periodic one evening exhibitions. Like many of these ‘new alternatives’ Four Walls largely rejected the pursuit of grants in order to operate with more flexibility and responsiveness. Mike Ballou, an artist involved with Four Walls spoke to what he saw as the incompatibility of an alternative spirit with long range planning:

We’re not into this grant cycle - granting institutions require that you tell them what you are doing for the next two years, and I’m not sure that you can maintain an ‘alternative’ spirit and do that![4]

Meredith Tromble echoed the problems that were created through most large scale foundation, corporate and government funding and spoke to some of the ‘flexibility’ problems that plagued the established alternative spaces:

The advantages of no corporate funding is that it allows for a certain amount of ‘flexibility’ to deal with the immediacy of the art world in a way that larger institutions cannot (and by implication the established alternative spaces could not.) The very bureaucratic nature of established alternative spaces required programming to be resolved one or two years in advance thus making it difficult for these structures to absorb new and subtle shifts in the artworld.[5]

            Many alternative spaces that had been founded in the 70s but had survived into the 90s were challenged to adapt to the changing climate. When in 1997, Washington DC’s oldest alternative space - The Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) - was threatened with bankruptcy and closure, its board opted to return to its 70s roots. A new smaller board was formed, drastic cuts were made in staff, and most radical of all, the project vacated its posh permanent space and began again with the all-volunteer remodeling of an abandoned nightclub. The alternative space, that had swollen to be a ‘mini museum’ with programming two years in advance and a large staff in one of Washington’s most expensive real estate neighborhoods, started all over and launched an experimental exhibition of emerging artists. Just a month before the show opened volunteers could be found ripping up beer soaked carpets and scraping layers of black paint from windows. This rebirth affirmed the claim that an alternative space must die or be reinvented in order to remain ‘alternative’.[6]

Indeed, many new alternative spaces sought to remain true to the original spirit of ‘alternative practice’ by staying ‘lean and mean’. This was achieved not only through a return to flexible, more responsive programming but also by rethinking the notion of space in ‘alternative space’.
Michael Floss, in San Francisco Web: New Alternatives, points out that these ‘new alternatives’ “require a new type of site”.[7] As the most pressing constraint for many had been that of maintaining a permanent piece of ‘real estate’, many of the new venues moved out from under this burden by launching ‘gypsy’ or guerrilla projects without a set place of operation; the ‘alternative space’ operating as a kind of mobile site.[8]
M. A. Greenstein, in Edgy in Edge City - Los Angeles, also addresses this issue of ‘home site’ by saying that for many alternative spaces in the 90s,

transience is a survival technique, proving homelessness to be a dominant mode in art and life.[9]

This model is echoed by David DiMichele in the same issue of Artweek:

The past year has brought a plethora of fresh, creative approaches to the traditional gallery formula. One has been to operate out of temporary available spaces, so that the galleries are frequently on the move.[10]

These new alternatives spaces did not operate out of art spaces but rather in unconventional venues. Store-front windows, garages, bus stations, restaurants, private dinning rooms and lounges all became sites for artists’ exchange and created what Mark van Proyen calls a “secret urban archaeology”.[11] This is significant in that these were sites that engaged with ‘public space’ in a manner that again moved away from the alternative space as a distinct autonomous ‘site’, and in many cases engaged in the issues of ‘context’ in the specific site.
The Temporary Contemporary, as the name suggests, was an alternative space that operated without a permanent space. This project, based in Baltimore mounted exhibitions in sites around the city that dealt with the specific nature of the ‘host’ site. These included public venues such as works in bus stops as well as wall text placed in other art institutions.
One particularly successful and provocative exhibition sponsored by the Temporary Contemporary was created out of the inspired combination of artist Fred Wilson with the conservative Baltimore Historical Society. Wilson, an African American artist, whose work deals with racial stereotypes in popular culture, was given full access the Historical Society’s archival materials. In an effective placement and combination of selected items, Wilson created new meanings via a complex layering of images and objects. A traditional ‘family portrait’ of a slave holding family was re-titled To bring the slave child in the corner to the center of the narrative. Shackles and elegant silver-ware were put side by side as were whipping posts and home furnishing, titled Examples of 19th Century Metalwork and Examples of 19th Century Woodwork. Wilson employed the neutral language of this conservative museum to critique itself. In this case, the alternative space was not a neutral site set to house exhibitions, but rather a place specifically chosen with a fully acknowledged cultural significance.[12]

In South Africa, the use of a ‘loaded site’ with a specific context was explored in the Taking Stock exhibition at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1997. Curated by Marco Cianfanelli, Luan Nell and Andrea Burgener, as part of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale Fringe[13], the exhibition took place in a functioning business complex on the old unused stock exchange floor. The curators described their intention in this way:

The aim of the show is that the works, both in an individual and a collective capacity, operate more as an intervention than as an exhibition.[14]

The site was charged with obvious references to ‘commerce’, but also spoke to the obsolescence of the ‘stage’ of an exchange floor filled with brokers. It had been abandoned and replaced with a ‘virtual’ floor, where traders carried out transactions via computer. As the theme of the Biennale was Trade Routes, the curators of this ‘Fringe’ exhibition saw this site as a context that was particularly rich in possibilities:

We are interested in the way in which economic power and other forms of power struggle (such as gender politics and race) are connected. We feel that the JSE site has potential for the negotiation of these issues on many different levels.[15]

The Los Angeles based project called Nomadic Site was another example of an alternative space that continually recreated the ‘site’ for its exhibitions, but with even less attention perhaps to the context of the site. Founded and run by a twenty-eight year old named Charles LaBelle, “talent agent, locations scout, and public relations officer” for the project, the Nomadic Site was described in this way by M.A. Greenstein writing for Artweek:

a roving, out of pocket, unofficial not-for-profit entity, that exists everywhere and nowhere. Here today, gone tomorrow, Nomadic site plays in the liminal zone that blurs the distinction between public and private mind.[16]

In Durban, two examples of artists’ initiatives addressed this notion of the ‘nomadic site’ in a manner that was appropriate to the South African context. One, the Community Mural Projects (CMP) created ‘exhibition sites’ all over the city, and another, the Transnet Art Train, brought a ‘moving gallery’ across the region between cities.
Community Mural Projects, although not an ‘alternative space’ as such, embodied a creative approach to both alternative practices and alternative sites. Running parallel in time to the FLAT, this non-profit organization with a mandate to “cover every wall in Durban with murals”, was initially called Dream City Projects. Run by Terry‑Anne Stevenson and Ilsa Mikula, CMP proved to be quite successful and soon these murals could be seen on walls all over the country.
The project began when Stevenson and Mikula organized to paint a human-rights mural (now a national monument) on Durban’s old city-jail walls; and continued as they obtained funding and sites, organizing groups of artists to work on the murals. Funding came from various art organisations, corporations and the government; and artists through the African Arts Centre,[17] word of mouth, or from institutions like the Technikon. Funding included payment for participating artists. A strong relationship grew between these artists associated with the Community Mural Projects, which included Thami Jali, Joseph Manana, Mandla Blose and Jethro[18], and the FLAT regulars.[19]
Though each mural was made around a theme, individual interpretations were open-ended and responsive to the community’s input. Peta Lee in an article from The Sunday Tribune quotes Mikula as saying:

We work in collaboration with about 15 artists. Where possible, we try to involve the locals by asking them what they’d like to see painted on their walls. The object is to promote peace and community awareness.[20]

Indeed this was an important aspect of another one of their projects, the Warwick Avenue mural, which was commissioned by the BAT Center for the Festival of Laughter. Simon Manana, an artist affiliated with the Essex Road artist space, Tsietsi Matubako, a senior painting‑student at the Technikon and Thomas Barry, one of the FLAT co-founders, were amoung the artists who worked on the mural. Before they began, they approached the local stall‑holders around the wall and asked them what kind of mural they would like to see. Mikula recalled:

They said they wanted to see themselves… so that’s what we gave them.[1]

In the BAT Review, the importance of art in the community is reiterated by Stevenson when she said:

It is often a way of instilling pride and a sense of belonging to the people in the area. By producing the images on a building or community hall, they have previously had no influence over; they finally put their stamp on it through their art.[2]

Another project for ‘taking the art out of the gallery’ developed when two train carriages were the site for an exhibition. Sponsored by Transnet, and organized by Barry, the ‘alternative space’ was literally these carriages that were then sent from Durban to the Grahamstown Arts Festival. Works were installed in this ‘moving gallery’, which itself became a ‘canvas’ for Dream City Projects (Community Mural Projects), who painted the entire exterior of the carriages with a mural. Thus they created a second travelling exhibition outside the carriages, that could be seen as the train moved from Durban to its destination. Artists who painted the mural included Trueman Myaka, Tsietsi Matubako, Blose, Jali, Mikula, Manana, and Barry.
Stevenson and Barry’s collaborative efforts continued after the Grahamstown Arts Festival with the curated exhibition, Emerging from the Kingdom, a Fringe exhibition at the 1st Johannesburg Biennale. The Fringe exhibitions[3] were conceived of as off site ‘alternative’ venues to the official Biennale. Emerging from the Kingdom was one that comprised solely of artists from Kwa-Zulu Natal.

With unconventional venues, a dynamic is created when art is placed in a site that does not necessarily operate as an autonomous safe ‘art space’. Here there is potential to engage the public directly. This can be an act which is developed with the full participation of the community, as with the murals projects and the Transnet train. However, it can also be an action that sparks controversy. The utilization of sites such as store-front windows or other public sites may confront an unwilling viewer and draw criticism and even censorship. This is an important aspect not only of ‘new alternative spaces’ but also ‘new alternative practices’; work that moves out of the gallery and intrudes into the viewer’s ‘real world’ in an aggressive manner. As a strategy in performance work, it blurs the distinction between art and life.
Clint Blagwell, an artist in Richmond (USA) worked independent of any gallery support with a group of collaborators to create performance works at various sites. In working class diners around the city, he and his co-performers staged ‘conversations’ where they ‘discussed’ a ‘hit job’ in voices loud enough to be overheard by other customers. In another work, he staged an event in a posh business district where he was chased, caught and dragged through the streets on a noon workday by well-dressed businessmen. In both ‘performances’ the stage was in the public but unlike ‘street theater’, did not set itself apart as ‘fiction’. What resulted was an intrusion into the viewer’s space both spatially and psychologically.
In Nomadic Sites’s Private And Public Pleasures, a store-front display by five women artists in an old beauty salon in Hollywood, a blatant treatment of sexual issues led ultimately to censorship. Critics of the project voiced objections that were not aimed so much at the content of the work, as to the fact that the installation was in a “very public context” where “people had no choice but to see it”. Though they acknowledged the implicit irony in repressing images that were about the repression of women, critics still regarded the display of controversial work in the ‘public space’ of a window front as offensive. Diane Mark-Walker, in her critique of The Private and Public Pleasures exhibition, addressed the need to consider how art functions in a public space:

Ironically it is the very extent to which Private and Public Pleasures merges with the surrounding territory that subverts and undermines its power. It would not be patronizing to suggest that these installations are too conceptually based and too rooted in the vocabulary of art world gender discourse to address a non-art world audience meaningfully... I can only conclude that Pleasures is a private toy in a public place.[4]

Indeed, as Mark-Walker points out, when alternative practices shift from galleries into public spaces and the ‘alternative space’ is no longer a gallery space but a kind of ‘appropriated site’ there becomes a pressing need to explore artforms that engage the public in meaningful ways. She addresses the concern that the shifting of an artwork from the gallery out into the world must be done in a way that is mindful of how it is to engage that world.