I wrote this review of the happenings over at FLUXspace in Kensington. It was intended for Theoretically, but it didn’t quite make the cut, as its a bit off-focus from ‘the work’ . The focus needs to be shifted before it can be considered, but I didn’t want to loose the thoughts. Here they are.
Something is in flux in Philadelphia, namely the world of Art. A space has emerged in the North of the city called ‘FLUXspace‘ – it is an artist-community driven gallery, housed in a massive industrial space that is also home to Art Making Machine Studios. This space has developed out of the efforts of a community of artists, all playing their own role in this new Art: one with the vision for the space, others with equipment and energy, some who are very good at communications – all making art and nurturing community around their creative act.
The space is raw in FLUX – the gallery itself presents new challenges to the artwork that enters. There are two white walls, one exposed brick, and the the fourth side of the cube boasts a massive industrial plate-glass window who’s age and history shows through the scattered broken panes. The most recent show in the space ‘Taking Measures’ was a group-curated/produced/installed show, in which three local artists Leah Bailis, Anna Neighbor, and Chad States took it upon themselves to come together and initiate a conversation between their respective work and the challenges of the gallery space at FLUX. The result was a stunningly cohesive and well thought-out exhibit that took as its subject an exploration of locative and discursive spaces. The great successes of this show culminated in an Artist Talk moderated by Stamatina Gregory, Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow, ICA. She engaged the artists in a conversation about their work, and about working toghether to curate an exhibition of their own art, in the space in which it was conceived and executed against.
The event was subtly unlike typical ‘Artist Talks’, FLUX’s focus on community permeated the air and bred an openness not usually encountered within the white box. The audience consisted mostly of young artists, familiar faces to those who created the work on display in the space. At the open, the FLUXspace Citizenry stepped-up to welcome the audience, and took the opportunity to plug their available studio space, upcoming community events, and invited the audience to register for their mailing list.
( Image: FLUXspace Citizenry Sheet)
This is an organized group of artmakers, with a mastery of both their internal and external communications and an inspiring emphasis on community. With this welcome out of the way, and a beer in each hand, the community-audience took a comfortable indian-style posture on the gallery floor and the talk began. Throughout the discussion the artists talked about their work in a language that was an odd mix of colloquialisms interspersed with oh-so-familiar ‘Art World’ rhetoric. At one point the moderator posed a question in the style of the later and was blatantly asked to ‘Please ask the question in a different way’. The conversation seemed to be some kind of community-driven effort to re-define the language and syntax surrounding their art. In this effort the traditions of art-speak are highly regarded and well respected, but at the same time are being seriously challenged as a new style of dialectic begins to demand a voice from within the white cube.
The FLUXspace Citizenry’s ideals and efforts epitomize the new Art emerging in Philadelphia. The abundance of Art Institutions in the city (Educational | Gallery | Studio | Museum) draw a huge number of emigrant artists from across the country into its geography. The city is conveniently located in close proximity to NYC, the headquarters of the Art World in America, without all the pressure of pretentiousness and high-stakes/high-rent lifestyle. Philadelphia has become an incubator for a community of art which is seeking to redefine itself, break outside of the established vocabulary, and the traditional notion of the locative-space of fine art.
In the process, the traditional business model of Curator-Gallery-Consumer is being challenged as organized communities of artist come together to take those roles into their own hands. Collective spaces such as Vox Populi and Space 1026 have established themselves as pillars in this city, and are quickly becoming the predominant model of Art Making, Art Exhibiting, and more and more so even Art Criticism in Philadelphia. Collectives and community spaces exist as a network strewn across the vast, and vastly affordable geography of the city – from the low-rent housing of South Philadelphia stretching to the massive abandoned industrial spaces of the Northeast neighborhoods of Fishtown and Kensington which FLUXspace calls home. Their numbers are growing, their art is maturing, and the community voice which defines their efforts is developing new momentum.
