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Artist Run Initiatives in Sydney, New South Wales

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Artist Run Initiatives in Sydney, New South Wales From Then to Now: Artist Run Initiatives in Sydney, New South Wales Amy Griffiths A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art Administration, Honours at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney. March 2012 1 Abstract Artist Run Initiatives are a firmly rooted aspect of the Australian and global arts world. Emerging with the counterculture in the 1960s, the alternative spaces movement provided opportunities for artists to explore and engage with new art practices and concepts of community. Historically influential on the development of post-object and conceptual art and the Art Union culture in Australia, ARIs are positioned right at the forefront of radical and innovative developments. Evolving into artist run spaces and coming to be known as ARIs, the evolution of the spaces and organisations has developed in harmony with art practice, praxis and local issues. ARIs are based in ideology or community, or a blending of the two, with the practitioners employing the structure of the ARI to explore praxis with the advantages of resource and facilities sharing and collective support. Space is and has been a major aspect of ARIs - the creation of space imbued with meaning, historically and pragmatically. The negotiation of space from within the context of a constantly changing and evolving city, such as Sydney, is a continual challenge for ARIs. Starting in the “slums” of Woolloomooloo and progressing further and further west with the development and gentrification of the City, ARIs are innovators when it comes to composing and negotiating space. From actively taking a stand and claiming space till forcefully evicted, to being the sole instrument in the creative urban renewal schemes that are sweeping the globe, ARIs actively participate and are also unknowingly employed to regenerate fading urban areas with their “bohemian” flair. In the forty plus years since the emergence of ARIs into the art world ecosystem, they have struggled to stay active and operational. They are constantly in jeopardy, at the mercy of pragmatic issues such as rising living costs, and abstract challenges associated with the “self- perpetuating cycle of invalidation”. At present there is a wide diversity of organisations, 2 spaces, collectives, websites, and projects that fit under the umbrella term of ARI. In the current fourth phase of evolution, ARIs are desiring to combat these challenges by coming together and creating a central site of support, from where knowledge can be distributed and experiences be shared, for ARIs to move forward and focus on what they do best, create culture. 3 Declaration of Intent Originality Statement ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’ Signed …………………………….................. Date ………………………………................. Copyright Statement ‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.' Signed ……………………………........................... Date …………………………….............................. Authenticity Statement ‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format.’ Signed ……………………………........................ Date ……………………………........................... 4 Acknowledgements Thank you to my supportive and encouraging supervisor Joanna Mendelssohn, whose knowledge of the Australian art world, especially of the 1970s was an invaluable resource of facts and names. A thank you to Felicity Fenner for a period of clarification and supervision, who, during a moment of dull panic on my behalf, pulled me back to writing about the good stuff. Thank you, Nita Athanas, Vicky Athanas, Gilles Cordey and Peta Moore, for the orbiting words of good faith, support and encouragement over the past four years. Thank you to Chris Athanas and Elia Zubani, who, in their own unique way, are responsible for me wanting to write this. Thank you to Stella McDonald for helping me learn that, no matter what the content, someone still has to read it, so the story needs to be good. A giant thank you to Alex Moore, without whom I would not have had the encouragement or will to finish writing what I had dubbed “The Albatross”. Thank you for listening with enthusiasm to all my unearthed historical facts about Sydney, and for coming along for the ride. Finally, a big thank you to everyone in the greater ARI community who contributed through interviews, images, nuggets of passing information, names of people, titles of texts, historical data and words of encouragement. This thesis is dedicated to all of you. 5 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Declaration of Intent 4 Acknowledgements 5 Table of Contents 6 Introduction 7 Chapter One An ARI Defined: Terminology, Appellation, and Nomenclature Explored 10 1.1 Introduction 10 1.2 The Past: The Alternative and Artist-Run 14 1.3 Avant-Garde Attitudes 20 1.4 The Evolutionary Phases of the Movement 24 1.5 The Present: Artist Run and Initiative 29 1.6 The Future: Where Are We Going? 37 Artist Run Spaces Enterprise, To Boldly Go… 42 Chapter Two History and Formation: The ARI Emerges from the Underground 45 2.1 Introduction 45 2.2 Art and Practice: the Ideology of the ARI 50 The Birth of the Idea and the Growth of the ARI 55 Experimental Art, Tin Sheds and Optronic Kinetics 66 Inhibodress 68 2.3 Socially Engaged, Political and Locally Orientated: The Community ARI 89 Community, Gardens and Local Action: Altruism and Activism via Art 92 Political Posturing: The Second Phase of the Tin Sheds 107 Chapter Three The Administration of an ARI: Cause and Affect 114 3.1 Introduction 114 3.2 The Space Race 117 Squatting and Space 127 Renewing a City 131 Accommodating Artists 138 The Little Engine that Could 142 Lanfranchi’s Memorial Discotheque 146 3.3 Artist Run Initiatives: They Come and They Go 150 Firstdraft, Final Draft 156 3.4 The Economy and Success of the ARI Sector 164 List of Figures 167 Bibliography 171 Appendix 178 6 Introduction This thesis is primarily concerned with opening up the avenues of discourse and research into Artist Run Initiatives (ARIs) and the culture surrounding them in Australia. It is the beginning of contextualising and including ARIs and ARI activity within a broader Australian art historical context. It is also the first step in the long process of documenting the history of the alternative arts and ARI movement, as defined by U.S.A. artist and writer Julie Ault (4), as much of the culture produced by this highly influential and important movement is ephemeral. Writing about alternative art spaces and groups has been largely limited to articles for local newspapers, reviews and overviews for art journals, and self- published documents concerning specific organizations (Ault 1). In the Australian context, this statement by Ault holds true, as up until now there has been little documentation contextualising ARIs within the Australian art historical sphere. Recently, the sector has been gaining a large amount of attention and recognition, with journal articles, projects and conferences dealing with ARI culture as a whole emerging. These include the We Are Here International Symposium on Artist Run Initiatives conference in 2011; the ARIna portal by the National Association of the Visual Arts (NAVA) and subsequent ARIpedia project initiated by Crawl in 20011;1 and the ARI project on 1 Crawl Inc. is an online community linking Australian ARIs. It is in the format of Facebook, with ARIs and individuals creating profiles, uploading images and events and connecting directly with one another. It was started in January 2007 by Nicholas Hudson-Ellis, and became an Incorporated Association on Tuesday March 10, 2009. It is accessible at <http://crawl.net.au>. ARIpedia is an online initiative by Crawl, in the format of Wikipedia, that aims to document the history of Australian ARIs. It is accessible at <http://aripedia.org.au/index.php?title=Main_Page>. ARIna is a proposed online partnership project between NAVA and Crawl Inc. funded by the City of Sydney and the Australia Council for the Arts. It is intended to be an online resource of relevant and important shared information for Australian ARIs. 7 Design and Art Australia Online (DAAO).2 This timely interest in ARIs and ARI culture has not occurred by accident.
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