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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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I obsess too much about artist-run centres. Here's an excerpt from something I wrote for Lola in 1997:
There is a common complaint that ARCs in Toronto have become "institutionalized." They were full of vim and vigour in the 1970s when artists first took over the bureaucracy and started setting the agenda themselves. But whether you are a politician, an artist, or a bank manager, red tape begets red tape. Founding members mature and the artists they choose to promote may be farther advanced in their careers. As an ARC's mandate evolves, new board members take up where the old ones leave off, and the process can't help but smooth out around the edges. It is hard to see how things could have happened any other way in a city with so many artists.
That was near the front edge of a generational watershed that I think is climaxing now. It's even more imperative that ARCs (or parallel galleries, as they used to be called) re-articulate their purpose, and do it in a language that inspires a new generation. Running an ARC is a ton of work. It requires a dedicated volunteer board with enthusiasm for the future and a vision for the programming. It requires staff who feel invested enough in the institution to put in extra hours making art shows happen on a shoestring. It's a team effort that, when it works, works great. But inspiration is required and that inspiration seems to be in short supply. Institutions change internally and so does the cultural climate around them. In the 1970s artists needed ARCs because there was nowhere else to show their work. It was a let's-put-the-show-on-right -here-in-the-barn mentality that drove the long hours and creative solutions to systemic and structural problems. Now there's a sort of entrenched misery, a doom and gloom attitude that we will all volunteer our energies, even if its no fun at all, to maintain a system that has become integral to visual art production in this country. But why? What is so important about artist-run centres now? I will pose some of my own responses to this question over the next few days, and I certainly hope, if there is anybody out there reading this, that others will too.
My current goal is to post here once a week, at least until November when things are bound to ease up work-wise. Tom Moody is posting like crazy! That guy is a damn good blogger, go read it. Also, Bikenerd is going strong. I am not going strong blog-wise, but I am still going. This post represents excerpts from my ongoing project of illustrating Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able To Come Forward As Science (I like the full title best). It's really really hard. I've been working on it off and on for about four years and I'm only halfway through the second section, "First Part of the Main Transcendental Question."
while this blog may be floundering at the moment, slipped into the crack between too much work and summer fun, the Prereviews are going strong and have even introduced a new point/counterpoint feature.
"Leon Golub, an artist who depicted scenes of war, torture and oppression in large-scale figurative paintings, has died." ...man. That's a brutish summation. This quote from his 2001 retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum has a bit more depth: "These expressive political paintings, many of which are mural-sized, explore issues of race, violence, war, and human suffering." I really like Leon Golub. I visited his studio as a student and found his aggressive take on media violence both challenging and inspiring. He was really articulate and generous in talking about his practice. I don't remember specifics of what he said, it being many many years ago, but I came away with this idea in my head: Why should art be pretty and unchallenging when TV news is so ugly and unchallenging?