Andrew Best sent this email through to the NUCA e list:

I was amazed to see that wikipedia had no history/knowledge of artist run initiatives in any of its entries on contemporary art or art galleries.

I’ve added references to it where i could see it fit, and created a few new topic categories to make it fit in better, including:

International Contemporary Art Scenes
Australian Contemporary Art
Artist Run Initiatives
Australian Artist Run Initiatives and separate listings for The Farm, First Draft, Loose Projects, MOP Projects, Downtown Art Space, etc - whatever quickly came to mind. There is also a section called “Art Galleries” that needs a good talking to.

anyway, lots of mistakes (and mainly omissions) - I’ve very quickly written the bare minimum to get the ball rolling. If you see merit in these being included, please create your own pages, histories, or make any additions or changes to what’s there. And forward this info to anyone you think should have a presence on it. I don’t really know the rules, i just hit ‘edit page’ at the top. If you want to create a new page you just write [[Name of New Section]] somewhere, save it, click on the link you’ve just made, and then create the new page. I don’t know how the editors control if things stay there, but I guess we’ll see. other people adding things may help. There should really also be a section on artist’s publications.
cheers all,
andrew

In September 2002, Lisa Kelly wrote a long, detailed, wide ranging, muckraking essay about artist run galleries, art writing, careerism… The essay, entitled “Servile Youth” was originally published in the Elastic printed project, Sydney 2002/2003 in the chapter ‘Points of View’ coordinated by Anne Kay, but has not been available online until now. NUCA has managed to wrestle a pdf copy from Lisa and we now present it for your reading pleasure.

Right-click here and choose “save target as” or “save link as” to download the 200kb PDF document to your hard drive.

(Interestingly, it seems to have been written before the enormous explosion of art writing and DIY networking in Australia, largely enabled by blogs… Be good to see what people think four years on…)

Danielle Freakley recently organised an exhibition in Melbourne, in which each artist was “exhibited” alongside his/her artwork. From the pictures, you can see, in fact, a gaffa-tape enclosure, kinda like a zoological cage, in which each artist had to remain (mute) for the duration of the show. The audience was asked to refrain from talking to the artists, or each other.
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Rebecca Conroy

presented by Performance Space as part of

Intersections 2006
THU 27 Jul
10AM-2PM
VENUE: Performance Space (199 Cleveland St Redfern)
COST: FREE

TALK / FORUM
An interactive discussion on the adventures of Gang Festival 05/06, a creative cultural exchange between 16 artist-run spaces from 2 countries over 7 months, culminating in a Chippendale take-over of streets, residences and local parks.

This workshop is designed for arts workers from the broadest range of practices who want to understand the bigger picture in a creative political economy. Participants will learn about the significance of progressive art spaces in Sydney’s history, and strategies to stimulate insurrection within your local arts constabularies. Using the game board ‘Monopoly’ as an example of the worst kind of template for a city, participants will work together to creatively transform these components of civic space and make the game fairer. Participants are encouraged to bring audacity and ideas.

Artist Lisa Kelly has written an essay called “Grasping the Thistle” - in which she compares the rhetoric of the 2006 Sydney Biennale with the on-the-ground experience of it. In her acute, muck-raking style, she wonders just how “inclusive” the biennale really is - and also reports on some of the thoughts of participants at the Cones of Zontact forum at Loose projects (held a few days after the Biennale launched, and featuring such luminaries as Ian Milliss, Reuben Keehan, Margaret Mayhem, and Zanny Begg).

Read it for yourself over here:
http://looseprojects.net/pdf/grasping_the_thistle.pdf

[NB: the essay was originally written for Artspace’s quick response to the biennale publication…]

While this is not exactly hot off the press, a message came through from one of our members to let us know that a document has been released, detailing the Aussie ban on the XBOX game Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.

That Classification Review Board document is here. It makes for some interesting reading. (more…)