THE Post-FLAT CONTINUATION

A TEMPORARY CONCLUSION

The burning of the FLAT marked the end of the ‘informal’ space as it had grown over the 16 months that it ran. Shifts had occurred over the course of its development and changes in our lives directly impacted on the character of the FLAT programme. Towards the end we had moved out of the space and had begun to operate in a manner that increasingly resembled a more conventional gallery. This included more advance programming and less direct and spontaneous interplay between living and exhibiting. Though we remained committed to our original mission to “provide a free and open space for all” the nature of the exhibitions in the last months were more conventional in format. Indeed ironically the FLAT began to contract just as it had begun to expand.
Just as there is no single clear reason for the FLAT’s beginning, so too the reasons behind its end are multi-layered. Life is always in flux and ‘alternatives’ by their nature reflect the changing circumstances of their participants. The constant burden of living in the chaos of a ‘public space’ was impossible to sustain, and the opening of South Africa to the world led many of the participants to seek new experiences outside of Durban.
It is significant to consider, however, that the FLAT operated during the transition into democracy in South Africa. Indeed, the symmetry is remarkable, with the gallery opening eight months before the elections and closing eight months after. The importance of this historical junction was discussed in conversation between Technikon Lecturer Lola Frost, Kendall Buster, a lecturer from the United States, and myself. Frost’s insight that the FLAT “articulated a utopian moment” spoke to the transitoriness of such ventures and the significance of the times in which it operated:

Frost:      I keep on saying to students now, for God’s sake get out there, go do it in the mall. And they look at me in amazement. I don’t see the sense of adventure now. I think what I am saying is that the FLAT Gallery existed historically between two periods – at the end of apartheid, and at the beginning of a new era. It actually existed in that gap. The FLAT Gallery was an articulation of a utopian moment. The very fact that you and Ledelle, who ran it, are now here in Washington also says something. Your interest isn’t in the new South Africa. Your leaving signaled the end of this hole that corresponds with this gap time. I don’t know what Thomas would have to say about that.
Buster:    The FLAT though, and this is my reading of it, started to collapse on itself. And it is parallel or is not so unlike what happened to alternative spaces in the United States. You would have an alternative space that would start lean and mean, very direct; and then over the years, the word gets out… It is almost like something becomes a victim of its own success. What happened with the FLAT, Siemon saying that towards the end, they started scheduling ahead of time. The word got out and so more and more people wanted to have shows. And of course they had an open door policy. And towards the end, the whole thing started to loose some of that spirit. They moved, they were no longer living there, and so it was more like a proper gallery. So there wasn’t that same blurring of art and life. It changed… it was over.
Frost:      I would say it slightly differently. When it started, it was filled with excitement at a) the running of the gallery, b) the implicit recognition of this moment, with all of its potential freedoms. The FLAT Gallery was an articulation of a utopian moment. The problem is that it started like that, and then other people started to see this and wanted to get in on the act, so to speak. But the minute other people get in on the act, it is no longer an ‘installation’ with utopian possibilities. It gets to be a ‘business’ that needs to be organized. It needs to be run and managed. And these artists were not about that. I remember thinking: “Oh, this was too much of a bother.” I remember speaking to you and you said that you were bogged down in bureaucracy and forward planning. And I thought: “Oh well this won’t last.” And it didn’t last much longer than that.
Allen:      I always thought it was an interesting paradox that as soon as we started reaching our aims and goals, we lost interest.
Frost:      But you see, you lost interest because I think there was a fundamental contradiction, and understandably so. A contradiction between an operation that was basically intimate and very located in a particular community; and its sense of responsibility towards the larger community. This responsibility was at odds with the intimacy and the locatedness that was actually driving it. And so you got strung out on policies which you felt you had to implement, in the name of avant-gardism – which were inclusive, non-racial and non-commodifiable. Those are hefty projects. I remember thinking: “Oh this is highly improbable.” At the same time though I would have censored that opinion. I would have said to myself that I am not allowed to think of these things in the new South Africa. It is a new moment, everything is possible. The fact that it didn’t continue shows how over-ambitious it was.
Allen:      I like what you are saying about connecting the FLAT to those ambitious times. The new South Africa, the new constitution - anything is possible.
Frost:      Well at the time everybody was working out the new constitution. It was only settled by 1994 and the FLAT gallery started in 1993. That’s the FLAT’s architectural frame.
Allen:      The elections happened at the height of the FLAT gallery’s success. It was right in the middle. The gallery opened eight months before the elections, and closed eight months after them.
Frost:      I think that is very significant. [1]

Though the FLAT as it had been was over, with time, this ending began to seem more like a transition or transformation for me. Not long after the burning and closing of the space, the FLAT was asked to participate in an exhibition documenting the heritage of art and cultural organizations in Durban. I continued FLAT activities without a space through the publication of a newsletter, the creation of an article for the newspaper under a pseudonym, and through the continued reworking of FLAT tapes in my own audio art projects. Moe, who was studying abroad at Virginia Commonwealth University, launched an exhibition in an empty warehouse space outside the ‘official’ gallery space reserved for graduate students. Later, under the name of FLAT International we presented installations in an unused store-front in Richmond, and she mounted a number of ‘open studio’ exhibitions in Baltimore and Washington, DC. Barry moved to Johannesburg to start working as a video-editor and became involved with the experimental music group, the Mud Ensemble and Horsburgh, after Cape Town, moved to London.