Introductory Note:
Some of these questions are easy to answer and some are not. Some may seem off the wall and some might seem tired. They are in no particular order, and may be redundant. My hope is that there are provocative moments for the reader and they help people to think about ways of pushing what I see as the important, continuing, collective project of making alternative spaces and doing independent cultural work. I choose the phrase “alternative space” not because I like it but because I like the way it seems to make room for the shedding of the established divisions of labor and boundaries of the art world.
Some Questions:
Isn’t a cultural space a social space? Don’t our social lives tend to revolve around cultural spaces? Isn’t culture more than installations and openings? Isn’t it also, books, posters, movies, furniture, food, the internet, conversation, education, toilets, lodging, cleaning, clothing, drinks, warmth in the winter, and cool in the summer? Don’t we need culture and furthermore don’t we need to feel like we are agents of culture? Don’t we need participatory culture? Who does cultural education and what are their interests? What are the dominant cultural institutions? What institutions do we depend on? Who makes the decisions at those institutions and what are their interests? Why have they defined culture and art as they have? Is an MFA program the best way to answer the cultural needs we face? How can our cultural work transcend deep social divisions, like class and ethnic lines? How can we interrogate the entrenched interests of our own cultural work? Can we do cultural work that experiments with humane economic forms and systems? Can alternative spaces be a place to concentrate and make visible humane economic gestures? Can people of privilege redirect that power to serve cultural needs without simply dominating and exerting power? Do alternative art spaces have to be practiced for the commercial art world? Can alternative art spaces be a part of democracy? Can alternative art spaces facilitate the speech of marginalized voices? Can they facilitate politicized speech that has no other venue? What risks can be taken in alternative art spaces to make them more interesting? How can we question the logic of capitalism if we depend on it? How is our art and cultural work constrained by the logic of capitalism? Can questioning the logic of capitalism in our cultural work broaden the social possibilities it allows? Can alternative spaces be places for education? Can they serve as a nexus to bring people together to learn from one another? Is not-for-profit status the best economic arrangement for an alternative space? What constraints are put on a space that goes not-for-profit? Aren’t our alternative spaces dependent on a network of sharing and mutual support to keep working? How can we push this economy of sharing and support to make it more substantial? Can we establish a strong network of material and information sharing that will allow us to accomplish our work on a larger scale and involve more people? How can we find ways of legitimizing alternative cultural work without falling back on the individualistic art star system? Is it really that important to always maintain well-defined boundaries between artist, curator, and viewer in alternative spaces? Can we use the resources we control to make it easier for more people to speak and participate in culture? Would you like to add to this list of questions? Would you like to help answer these questions? Should we get together and talk about it? Please contact Mike Wolf (mistywoof@gmail.com)or maybe even Caroline Picard or your local alternative space if you want to get together on this.
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