It's time for zines to find a space - 4 walls, a home, a concrete reality, a point on the map.
It's time for the arts to find a space - 4 walls, a home, a concrete reality, a point on the map, a center for the art revolution to take root.
Now, it's too nebulous, passed about in zines and letters from zinester to zinester (or mail artist), formulating in the minds of people here and there. But if there was a place at the crossroads of 'Here&Now' then zinesters could connect up, rally, voice in unison, make the pilgrimage, take the revolution from thoughts to lumber!
Space, it's in the air now. First there were zines. Next came zine review zines - FactSheet 5, Zine World, Amusing Yourself to Death,etc. Next came the zine distributors - two new ones are Glovebox distro and Amusing Yourself to Death. Then too, there were the Art Revolution Festivals here in Dallas - a day of all kinds of exhibits and performing arts. And the recent Santa Barbara Zine Fest organized by zinesters Lynne Lowe and Ruel Gaviola.
Now use all that as ingredients in a recipe. Begin to stir. Read the following:
From a letter to Musea by Michael Dittman (Global Mail, Curriculum Vitae, C.V.I.S.,etc.) "Space, space, space, that's what's been on my mind lately...because I've been thinking how nice it would be to have my own permanent space for the zine shows and what ever other multimedia madness I can come up. I'm tired of begging coffee house owners to let the show come there and then be told that grandma, who owns the place, needs to see all of the poems ahead of time because she doesn't want any satanists in her coffee house. If it weren't so funny, I think I'd cry..."
From a letter to Musea by Fran McMillan (Jamie Foster, etc.) "It's getting harder and harder to operate off the corporate grid. For a long time, it's been a dream of mine to start a public access art studio - with a copy center, dark room,, computer lab, and small recording studio - for all of the people who are economically unable to take part in this digital revolution everyone keeps talking about, but the startup costs are so great - and that's with buying used equipment."
ALSO SEE past Musea articles such as Dateline: 2000 A.D.: Dallas Becomes Art Center to the World (4/94); Art on the Largest Scale of All: City Planning (8/95); 3 Rooms: It's Open House at Musea (2/97); The Musea Plan: Dallas 30 Years Forward (3/97); Musea Programs a TV Network (11/97) and The Box (2/98).
Months ago I sat down and mapped out the next two goals for the Art Revolution. The 1st was a website, or network of websites for all of the arts. The Musea website is now up and running and we hope to link to as many other art sites as possible. Please join us and link up to your site.
The 2nd goal is FINDING A SPACE - THE FINAL FRONTIER. But what would make this art space different from say, the MAC (McKinney Avenue Contemporary Art Center) in Dallas or the new Bass Hall in Ft. Worth (the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall)? We sent Musea ace reporter 'Goldilocks' (of fairy tale fame) and asked her to report. Here are her notes:
THE MAC: New building, contemporary design, painted blue, one level, large lobby, 2 exhibit rooms, one small theater, and offices that are off limits. Somebody with big $$ got this started. Nice parking, safe uptown area. Quiet, more Frasier than Stooges. Carries Musea (biting the bear paw that feeds me?), art exhibits seem like art-by-credentials, that fits the conceptual art-NYC model. Usually just one or two artists control both rooms. Usually artists from somewhere else - Brazil, Tokyo, out-of-town-ism. Bureaucratic, hard to get involved, hard to set up something, hard to find the people that run it. The seem very busy when I see them (doing what?) But the space is sparse of audience. The theater is empty and quiet during the day, snack bar closed, magazine rack unattended.
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT: Location, parking, security, new facilities, great bathrooms, space that's ready for art, contemporary, takes chances with the offbeat (carries Musea).
LESSONS LEARNED: Must involve the audience into the space. have something going on all the time, someone signed up for every space, every day. And fill up the theatre with children's theater day films or videos, one-acts, rehearsals, concerts, etc. Maximize space - share - cooperate - BE THERE to explain, show around, sign up, and to greet and welcome. Make it hummmmm!
RATING: TOO HOT!
BASS HALL: Rich Bass family ponies up the dough and controls the project. 4th and Commerce Streets, and entire downtown Ft. Worth block. Money spread lavishly - architect David M. Schwartz makes it look like a hodge-podge of every architectural style from the Renaissance (2 50 ft. angel trumpeters, don't look like Gillespie) to 1930's Depression Deco - Texas limestone, Fair Park style. Editor Art says "More smorgasbord than temple."
Twenty- one luxury boxes ($600,000 - $2 mil) make it clear that this is not for you and me, makes clear it's a space for 'society art' - art that's classical, already past, can never offend or even reach the contemporary audience (Bach was contemporary once): ballet, symphony, opera, MOR acts. It's booked for Cliburn, Carol Burnett, Phantom of the Opera, etc.
Wouldn't carry Musea (wouldn't know what a 'zine' is) and it's not available without beaucoup bureaucracy to anyone outside the social art cliques. Opening gala by invite only - and only to those donors who gave $10,000 or more. Five fixed bars, six portable bars.
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT: Acoustics are adjustable, lavish details and good craftsmanship inside and out, invigorating the downtown area. It's paid for. The proud and the few will enjoy it. Eleven bars.
LESSONS LEARNED: Don't think padding on seats for acoustics' sake and don't put air vents under chairs (lost keys). Don't run out of space and put dressing rooms under the sidewalk and rehearsals in another building. Don't make all of your appeals to the rich or you'll be stuck with them. Don't live in the past. Passe? Provincial?
RATING: TOO COLD!
MUSEA SPACE: Start small. Start prudent. Start with people, not money. Cooperate. Set up Art Revolution Festivals, one a month, then a week, the a day, then a permanent space. OPEN THE DOOR! Invite people into a safe, secure, well-managed space. Doorman meets and greets. Staff answers questions NOW, not in the mail, not over the phone, not sometime next week.
Open to all arts - if 3 or more arts aren't on at the same time, consider it failing.
Mix exhibits: zines, arts, videos, fashion shows, with performance art: anything ever seen on a vaudeville stage, i.e. every kind. Mix old and new, classics and now- sics. Make a space for the lousy as well as the genius. Amateur night or day performances/exhibits for the up and comers - spotlight times for the gifted and classic.
Work against corporate art by example - by showing how good 'Indie' art is, how un-boring, how fresh. Take chances - learn to fail with grace and win more often.
Sponsor the best of art from anywhere. Be busy day and night. Make the place look used, honored, venerable. Have a sign-in board and just sign in for weekly times to perform. Dump the liquor license - too much emphasis on money, government bureaucracy, not enough on art. And liquor rules out the young and often the un-rowdy.
Foster competition - yes drop the genteel act and have artists race in friendly competition for quality and innovation - Leonardo v. Michelangelo v. Raphael - it works.
WISH LIST: Nice architecture (or at least funky). Safe and clean, with parking (until better city planning comes along). Inside vacant, artists can fill that up in months. NO ADVERTISERS/NO SPONSORS/NO GOVERNMENT GRANTS!
NO $%&*@ PRESENTS!: The zine and classics reading rooms are the exhibit spaces, are the performance halls, are the theater center, are the guerilla music booth, are the Internet cafe, are the snack room. Enough people so 'eyes' are everywhere, there to help the confused and to confuse the thieves.
And build out to a network of art centers - touring circuits or talents. Reproduce small size art on color copiers and sell them at modest cost. And speaking of costs, keep it low so they keep coming. $2-5 to get in the door (or any donation - which from the Art Revolution Festival experience, actually brings in a lot more.)
Listen to the Audience. Give in halfway and prove them wrong the other halfway. Support the arts. Start a no-ads web or zine, alternative newspaper. Be the art center for the here and now.
RATING: JUST RIGHT!
WHAT WOULD AN ART CENTER LIKE THIS DO?
It would test our convictions about art, our social skills with other artists, and the public, our ability to suppress our egos for a more important common cause, and have fun, to take a chance, to make things better for this and future generations.
WHO KNOWS SUCH A PLACE? Do YOU have a warehouse sitting idle? Are YOU ready for the Art Revolution to have a home? So ready, you're willing to work to make it a reality? A 4-walls reality? Let us hear from you or anyone reading this about anything in this. Let's see what happens. There's more space yet to come. Now turn to two essays about space by friends and zinesters Michael Dittman (Pa.) and Scott Crow (Ca.)