An artist-run space or artist-run centre (Canada) is a gallery or other facility operated or directed by artists, frequently circumventing the structures of public art centers, museums, or commercial galleries and allowing for a more experimental program. An artist-run initiative (ARI) is any project run by artists, including

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

s, to present their and others' projects. They might approximate a traditional

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

space in appearance or function, or they may take a markedly different approach, limited only by the artist's understanding of the term. "Artist-run initiatives" is an umbrella name for many types of artist-generated activity.

Argentina

The two main artist-run spaces from

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

were Belleza y Felicidad and

APPETITE Appetite is the desire to eat food items, usually due to hunger. Appealing foods can stimulate appetite even when hunger is absent, although appetite can be greatly reduced by satiety. Appetite exists in all higher life-forms, and serves to reg ...

, both set the standards for emerging art in Argentina. APPETITE was a gallery was the first Argentinian gallery to be accepted at

Frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

, London, and encouraged a lot of galleries to its San Telmo

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city delimited by functional (e.g. residential, comm ...

Australia

Many artist-run spaces exist in Australia. These spaces are often provided with funding assistance by government and state funding bodies.

Canada

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. Important historical artist-run initiatives include the North Edmonton Sculpture Workshop

Ireland

Although varying widely in structure, contemporary spaces like Ormston House, A4 Sounds, Pallas Projects, Sample-Studios, and 126 Artist-run Gallery have all emerged in the Republic of Ireland in the last 25 years. After the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

, many Irish cities experienced high levels of commercial vacancies. Annette Moloney, curator and author of ''Art in Slack Spaces'' (2010), "notes that artists ereincreasingly making use of the recession as an opportunity to use vacant shops." At this time, artist initiated projects like The Complex, Block T, Basic Space, The Joinery, and This is Not a Shop, availed of such spaces in Dublin, while Occupy Space, Ormston House, Raggle Taggle Consortium, and Faber Studios appeared in Limerick. Additionally, Basement Project Space, Cork Contemporary Projects, The Couch, The Black Mariah and Sample-Studios/Tactic in Cork, as well as 126 and projects by Engage Art Studios in Galway appeared more or less simultaneously. In 2015, 126 published ''FOOTFALL: Articulating the Value of Artist Led Organisations in Ireland. The Future is Self-Organised – Artist-Run Spaces'' was an exhibition curated by Pallas Projects at the Limerick City Gallery of Art. A number of artist-run spaces and projects from Ireland and abroad were represented, as well as artists who have worked with Pallas over its 20 year history, in this 2015–16 exhibition. Pallas then co-published, with Onomatopee, ''Artist-Run Europe: Practice/Projects/Spaces'' later in 2016. It is a collection of experiences, and essays by various artist-run projects in Europe.

Mexico

''Biquini Wax'' is an experimental project in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

of exhibitions, events, parties, and lectures that was started in the house of the artists. ''La Feria de la Acción'' (The Action Fair) was an artist-run

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

that ran parallel to Zona Maco and Material Art Fair in Mexico City in 2020. It showed only interactive, relational, or

performative In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing. In a 1955 lecture series, later published as ''How to D ...

works.

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. * The Blue Oyster Art Project Space was established in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

in 1999; its founding members were Emily Barr, Steve Carr, Wallace Chapman, Douglas Kelaher and Kate Plaisted. The gallery is currently located on Dowling Street in Dunedin's CBD and is funded by Creative New Zealand and

Dunedin City Council The Dunedin City Council () is the Local government in New Zealand, local government authority for Dunedin in New Zealand. It is a Territorial authorities of New Zealand, territorial authority elected to represent the people of Dunedin. Since O ...

. It is overseen by a board of Dunedin artists and arts professionals. * The Physics Room in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

emerged from South Island Art Projects, an organisation that in 1992 began presenting temporary and public art events without a formal location. In 1996 The Physics Room was established in a gallery space in the Christchurch Arts Centre. The gallery is now located in the CBD on Tuam Street and receives operational funding from Creative New Zealand.

Scotland

Wasps Studios is a country-wide, artist-run initiative that has been operating in Scotland since 1977.

United Kingdom

There are numerous ARIs in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, often working around and critiquing the functioning of larger art institutions and organisations. An ARI is a project independently run by visual artists which generally showcases the work of local and emerging artists; many exist on low budgets and are managed by artist collectives. In the UK, ARIs tend to be smaller and less permanent than public and municipal organisations and can, for example, become established for the duration of an event or for the period of a lease on a property. Most ARIs in the UK are funded by the

Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...

, the national development agency for the arts in the UK, distributing public money from Government and the National Lottery. Artist-run spaces had a particularly strong effect on urban regeneration in Glasgow, where the city won the accolade '

European Capital of Culture A European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union (EU) for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. Being a European Capital of Culture can ...

' 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. South London is home to a number of artist-run galleries including Matt’s gallery, Newport street gallery and Beaconsfield gallery. East London has continued to house a number of artist-run spaces. In

Shoreditch Shoreditch is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Hackney alongside neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets, which are also perceived as part of the area due to historic ecclesiastical links. Shoreditch lies just north ...

, London

Charles Thomson Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729 – August 16, 1824) was an Irish-born Founding Father of the United States and secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence. As secretary, Thomson prepared the Journals of the ...

founded the Stuckism International Gallery in 2002 warehouse.Alberge, Dalya. "Artists brandish brushes at rivals", ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 20 July 2002, p. 3. Onlin
reprint
retrieved 17 February 2008. 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 A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

in 2003 and is run by artists Michael Keenan and Keran James. The gallery is an artist-run,

not-for-profit A not-for-profit or non-for-profit organization (NFPO) is a Legal Entity, legal entity that does not distribute surplus funds to its members and is formed to fulfill specific objectives. While not-for-profit organizations and Nonprofit organ ...

space, located in a former

sex shop A sex shop is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, pornography, and other related products. An early precursor of the modern sex shop was a chain of stores set up in Par ...

in Redchurch Street,

, East London. One ARI, the Belfast-based Catalyst Arts, wrote that:

"Artist-run means initiating exchange; emphasizing cross and inter-disciplinary approaches to making art; developing networks; through curation, putting creative ideas and arguments into action"

Northern Ireland

Catalyst Arts is based directly on Transmission, and in turn inspired 126 in Galway. Artcetera, PS², Platform, and the Belfast Print Workshop are all other artist-run spaces in Belfast.

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 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 (1973–2003), ARC Gallery (1973–), Gallery Bugs Bunny (1968–1972), N.A.M.E. Gallery (1973–1997), NAB Gallery (1974–1984), Randolph Street Gallery (1979–1998), 1019 W. Lake St./Noise Factory (1981–1985), W.P.A. Gallery (1981–?) and Axe Street Arena (1985–1989). In 2009, ''Artist-run Chicago'' was mounted by the Hyde Park Art Center and featured notable artist-run spaces operating between the late 1990s and 2009.

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 Located in Hollywood, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) is a nonprofit exhibition space and archive of the visual arts for the city of Los Angeles, California, United States, currently under the leadership of Sarah Russin. History In ...

was founded by several individuals including two artists. Machine Project, Pretend Gallery, Actual Size, and

Human Resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ' ...

are all managed by artists. Currently Los Angeles has a vibrant artist-run scene, as evidenced by an artist-run fair called Other Places Art Fair (OPAF), consisting of almost entirely artist-run spaces and initiatives.

New York

During the 1950s in Manhattan, artist-run co-ops became the alternative to the uptown

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stree ...

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 SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

. Park Place gallery was an artist-run cooperative that featured cutting-edge Geometric abstraction. Eventually, by the 1970s,

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: * MINUS SPACE is an artist-run curatorial project devoted to reductive art. Minus Space maintains an exhibition space in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

and curates exhibitions at other venues nationally and internationally. Minus Space also has a location on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

enabling it to collaborate with other institutions.

San Francisco

Savernack Street is an artist-run micro-gallery located in San Francisco's Mission District created and curated by artist Carrie Sinclair Katz. The gallery interior is inaccessible to visitors and artwork can only be viewed by looking through a reverse peephole located on the storefront. The exhibitions usually feature a single piece of miniature artwork that appears larger or life sized when viewed through the peephole.

Portland

Portland, Oregon, is home to artist-run initiatives including Carnation Contemporary and Chicken Coop Contemporary.

Footnotes

References

* Bizewski, Janusz
Janusz Bizewski Gallery, Visual Artist
* Colon, Lorne. "Artist-run Manhattan Graphics Center celebrates 20 years", ''Downtown Express'', Vol 18, Issue 52, May 12–18, 2006. * Detterer, Gabriele & Nannucci, Maurizio (ed.). "Artist-Run Spaces", JRP-Ringier / Les presses du réel, 2012, / . * Kimm, Ronni and Jesse Aron Green eds.
Dispatches and Directions: On Artist-Run Organizations in Los Angeles
'
ART2102
Los Angeles, 2011. * MacAdam, Barbara A. "Tilman - Minus Space", ''Art News,'' January 2008, Vol 107, No 1, p 132. * ''Machine Learning'', exhibition catalog, The Boyden Gallery of St. Mary's College of Maryland, The Painting Center, Gallery Sonja Roesch and Minus Space. Essay by Matthew Deleget. * Satinsky, Abigail; Bryce Dwyer & Shannon Stratton eds. "Phonebook: A directory of independent art spaces, programming, and projects across the United States." threewalls, Chicago, 2011. * Volk, Gregory. "The Chelsea Alternative", ''Flash Art,'' Summer 1999, Vol.XXXII, No.207.

External links

criticalnetwork: UK-based artist-run initiative and network, which promotes the projects of other UK and Ireland-based ARIs
{{Authority control Artist groups and collectives Artist-run centres Types of art museums and galleries