Artspace comes into its own
The moving boxes at the Artspace lofts have most certainly been unpacked. After a few minor speed bumps owing to construction problems and the like, most of the kinks seem to have been ironed out. The ambitious, $16.9 million project, has mounted its first group exhibition, "Unpacking Artspace," now on view in the 1914 building's two-story lobby and communal space. See my review of the show in Gusto.
Though most of the art presented in the show isn't explicitly about Artspace itself, much of it speaks to the potential benefit of a community of artists all living and often working in the same concentrated (and affordable) space. The exhibition's co-curator and unofficial Artspace spokeswoman, Lukia Costello, noted that the project includes several collaborative committees for such endeavors as gardening and minor building repairs that have brought the artists living there together to share ideas and potentially creatively fertile experiences.
One work, a pair of photographs by M.M Pamer, features another Artspace resident twirling a fiery baton in the Artspace building itself. A black-and-white photograph by Costello feature some flowers she saw walking around near the Artspace grounds.
These are minor examples, and no doubt any true collaborative artistic output will take some time to develop, but consider some of the more famous artist communities from which the Artspace experiment takes its cues: schools like the Bauhaus and unofficial art-centric neighborhoods like the Haight-Ashbury, East Village and Montmartre of yore. The formula is simple, and in some ways, flawed: artist + artist + artist = cooler art. Not necessarily, and as Costello noted, personality clashes have predictably been a significant part of the Artspace scene to this point. But, as "Unpacking Artspace" proves, a concentrated group of artists working in wildly different media and subject matter and bound together more for their economic status than their artistic sensibilities, has at least promising potential.
What do you think: Do 60 units of housing for artists and their families have the power to significantly shift their creative output? Or is cramming a bunch of disparate artists into one spot simply a good way for them to save money?
Share your thoughts!
--Colin Dabkowski
(Photo: Charles Lewis/The Buffalo News)
