Initial Conditions: Artists Make Spaces
Franklin Street Works
Curated by Terri Smith
September 12, 2015 – January 3, 2016

"Initial Conditions: Artists Make Spaces" presents installations and programming that explore alternative spaces initiated by some of Franklin Street Works’ past exhibiting artists. As a not-for-profit whose mission and vision were largely informed by the alternative art space model – especially the often artist-started spaces and projects that flourished in New York City in the 1970s – Franklin Street Works is celebrating the beginning of its fifth year by revisiting the “alternative” through artist projects that make new spaces. 

Often times the initial condition of these spaces are not art centric, but instead are born of a common interest, an individual’s needs, a desire to share resources or to create new models for production and distribution. The creation of space here does not necessarily mean a fixed space either. Unlike the alternative art space model of a dedicated building that programs “alternatives” to the dominant museum and commercial gallery offerings (like Franklin Street Works), many of these spaces are using locations that, to quote exhibiting artist Park McArthur, “are already textured with other concomitant activities like people’s homes and ceramic studios.” In addition to existing spaces taking on hybrid roles, the alternative spaces here include a fixed gallery space in Manhattan, global locales united through their use of a digital knitting program and nomadic sites of activity found on a case-by-case basis for performance, discussion, and learning.

Exhibiting Groups: Care Collective, Ceramics Club (cc), Culture Push, La Casita Verde, microRevolt, Regina Rex, USELESS magazine, and We are Canaries.