Artist-run space


An artist-run space is a gallery facility operated by creators such as painters or sculptors, thus circumventing the structures of public and private galleries. Artist-run spaces have become as an important factor in urban regeneration, for example in Glasgow, Scotland.

Argentina

The two main artist-run spaces from Buenos Aires were Belleza y Felicidad and APPETITE, both set the standards for emerging art in Argentina. APPETITE was a gallery was the first Argentinian gallery to be accepted at Frieze, London, and encouraged a lot of galleries to its San Telmo barrio.

Australia

Many artist-run spaces exist in Australia. These spaces are often provided with funding assistance by government and state funding bodies. Notable examples of current or recent artist-run projects and spaces include:
Artist-run centre is the common term of use for artist-initiated and managed organizations in Canada. Centres follow the not-for-profit arts organization model, do not charge admission fees, are non-commercial and de-emphasize the selling of work. The centres were created originally in response to a lack of opportunity to present contemporary work in Canada and a desire to network with other artists nationally and internationally. In the 1990s there were over 100 artist-run centres across Canada. There are currently at least 60 artist-run centres with continuous operating funding.
The primary source of funding for artist-run centres is the Canada Council which has a specific program of two-year operating support for artist-run centres. Most centres also receive funding from the Provincial governments, most of which have an arts council to financially assist individual artists and arts organizations. Centres may also receive funding from their local municipal or city governments. Centres sometimes will secure funding for specific projects from corporations that manage lottery earnings or public and private foundations. Centres have tended not to pursue individual sponsors or patrons, neither corporations nor individuals, in part because they are in a critical relationship with the traditional and established art system of museums which have the resources to pursue that type of support.

France

Immanence is an artist-run space located in Paris Montparnasse. It was founded in 1998 by two artists, Cannelle Tanc and Frédéric Vincent. Since its opening on January 25, 2000, this artist-run space has organized more than 100 exhibitions. In particular the first Edouard Levé's Exhibition, "Rêves Reconstitué" in 2000, a carte blanche to Jean-Marc Bustamante a solo show of Eric Corne, "Le plus plus grand piano du monde " Goran Vejvoda, "readonlymemories" Grégory Chatonsky, "men crying" Gulsun Karamustafa, "Au-tour de Robert Filliou, Cover record. In 2008, The center of research and documentation around artist book, Archive Station open with a big exhibition of artists books since this opening, Immanence have made lot of exhibition with artists book in particular something else press and around in 2010.

New Zealand

A number of artist-run spaces have flourished throughout New Zealand since the 1990s. Some have been short-lived, whereas others have secured long-term funding and been operating for more than a decade.
"Teststrip has always been about us pursuing and creating a context for our own work. I guess we were interested in creating things-not like most galleries which act as a conduit or filter. We didn't go out and look for stuff for the gallery-we just each had our own practices and interests which we brought to it. Of course, that meant we had to keep in touch with what was going on."

The Teststrip archives are held by Auckland Art Gallery. A history of the organisation was published in 2008.

United Kingdom

Artist-run spaces had a particularly strong effect on urban regeneration in Glasgow, where the city won the accolade 'European Capital of Culture' in 1990 largely due to the large number of artist-run exhibition spaces and galleries, such as Transmission Gallery. Curator Hans Ulrich Obrist coined the term "The Glasgow Miracle" to describe this.
FIVE YEARS was founded by a group of artist in 1998, based in 40 Underwood St., Shoreditch. London. It was a neighbour to BANK's space, Poo Poo Gallery and 30 Underwood St. In 2002, Five Years, Mellow Birds had to leave the old Victorian Industrial premises to give way to gentrification new Loft Style housing. After a few years of only virtual and site specific existence, FIVE YEARS members found a space in Hackney from which they continue to work since 2007 with an expanded membership.
East London has continued to house a number of artist-run spaces. In Shoreditch, London Charles Thomson founded the Stuckism International Gallery in 2002 warehouse. The last show there was in 2004. The Transition Gallery was founded in October 2002 in a converted garage close to Victoria Park, Hackney, London, and is run by artists Cathy Lomax and Alex Michon to show work by established and new contemporary artists. In 2016, the artist-run project Auto Italia South East relocated to Bethnal Green after programming and producing artists work nomadically in donated or squatted buildings since 2007.
studio1.1 was founded as a co-operative in 2003 and is run by artists Michael Keenan and Keran James. The gallery is an artist-run, not-for-profit space, located in a former sex shop in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, East London.
Hartslane is experimental art project space, in New Cross Gate, South East London, founded in 2012. It is based in a derelict garage which was an eyesore and a wasted resource owned by Lewisham Council and occupied by People Before Profit as part of their struggle for affordable housing in Lewisham.

United States

Chicago

Chicago has a long tradition of artist-run spaces and projects dating back to the late 1800s. In 1876 artist D. Knight Carter founded Vincennes Gallery of Fine Arts which was reorganized in 1880, by Frank C. Bromley, Henry Arthur Elkins along with other artist to establish a permanent gallery and residency for studio artists. In 1930, artist Increase Robinson ran a studio gallery in her Dianna Court Studio where she exhibited both her own work and the work of others. The Hyde Park Art Center was established in 1939 and still produces programming. And the Contemporary Art Workshop established in 1950 by Jack and Lynn Kearney, Leon Golub, Cosmo Campoli, Ray Fink, Al Kwitz and held programming through 2009.
In 1984, the exhibition Alternative Spaces curated by Lynne Warren at the Museum of Contemporary Art catalogued the scores of artists and artists' spaces to emerge in Chicago including a wave of alternative spaces that emerged from 1960s through 1984 including Artemisia Gallery, ARC Gallery, Gallery Bugs Bunny, N.A.M.E. Gallery, NAB Gallery, Randolph Street Gallery, 1019 W. Lake St./Noise Factory, W.P.A. Gallery and Axe Street Arena. One the factors contributing to the demise of the artist run spaces in Chicago in the late 1980s, was the reduction of public funding for artists and for the arts.
In 2009, Artist-run Chicago was mounted by the Hyde Park Art Center and featured notable artist-run spaces operating between the late 1990s an 2009 including 1/Quarterly, artLedge, Butchershop, Co-Prosperity Sphere, devening projects + editions, Deluxe Projects, Dogmatic, joymore, Julius Caesar, Law Office, Margin Gallery, mini dutch, Modest Contemporary Art Projects, NFA Space, Normal Projects, Old Gold, Polvo, Roots & Culture, Standard, Suitable, Teti, The Suburban and VONZWECK.
Current and recent artist run projects in Chicago include:
The artist-founded residency ACRE additionally maintains a project space in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles has a tradition of artist run spaces dating back to at least the 1950s. Chris Burden's Shoot piece took place in a space run by artist Barbara T. Smith. Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions was founded by several individuals including two artists. , known for innovative, non-traditional approaches to exhibition making, was founded in Echo Park, Los Angeles by artist in 2012.
Currently Los Angeles has a vibrant artist-run scene, as evidenced by an artist-run fair called Other Places Art Fair, consisting of almost entirely artist-run spaces and initiatives. 2010, ART2102 of Los Angeles published the book and an online directory, Dispatches and Directions: On Artist-Run Organizations in Los Angeles, which documents these initiatives from 2005–present.

New York

During the 1950s in Manhattan, artist-run co-ops became the alternative to the uptown Madison Avenue galleries that catered mostly to wealthy blue-chip and European art-oriented collectors. From the early 1950s to the early 1960s the Tenth Street galleries located mostly in the East Village in lower Manhattan became the proving ground for much of the contemporary art that achieved popularity and commercial success in the decades that followed. During the 1960s, the Park Place Gallery became the first important contemporary gallery in SoHo. Park Place gallery was an artist-run cooperative that featured cutting-edge Geometric abstraction. Eventually, by the 1970s, SoHo became the new center for the New York art world as hundreds of commercial galleries opened in a sudden wave of artistic prosperity.
Contemporary artist-run galleries include:
A survey of activity titled was published by artist-run initiative Vox Populi in 2010, and included an index of Philadelphia based artist-run spaces from the 1960s to 2009. Some of those spaces include: