Spaces: Antenna, The Front, Good Children Gallery is the first exhibition to bring together these collectively organized, cooperatively run artist spaces located on or near St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans. Since 2008, Antenna, The Front, and Good Children Gallery have embodied a thriving intellectual and artistic spirit in the city, evidenced through their programs that support both emerging and established artists. What sets Antenna, The Front, and Good Children Gallery apart from other initiatives located in New Orleans is their organizational structures, through which artist members curate exhibitions of other artists’ work or present their own. Spaces is an exhibition that focuses on the individual, the collective, and, most importantly, the way in which the members of these collectives interface through the exhibitions and events they organize.

Spaces is inspired in part by an exhibition of the same name curated by Jennifer Licht at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York in 1969, which included installation-based projects in specified “spaces” throughout the museum and sculpture garden. This was an unprecedented exhibition for MoMA at that time, and though much has changed since then, it is still clear that arts institutions must continue to define and redefine their role in supporting and servicing the needs of a creative community. Spaces, like its predecessor, allows artists’ work to respond to the architecture of the building and to create projects or organize events that evolve long after the exhibition has officially opened to the public. Other exhibitions that serve as important art historical references for Spaces include Locally Localized Gravity, presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA in 2007 and Collective Creativity at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany in 2005. The former focused on artists as producers and the latter on artists working collectively or collaboratively.

For Spaces, the second floor, Lupin Foundation Gallery of the CAC is divided into two sections: a traditional group exhibition featuring work by the members of Antenna, The Front, and Good Children Gallery and an archive that includes a timeline, as well as web and print materials (brochures, postcards, posters, catalogs, etc.) from each artist and from each collective. Collaborative group projects elaborating the collectives’ particular aesthetics and politics are also presented in the archive. Three site-specific projects by Rachel Avena Brown & James W. Goedert, Bob Snead, and Jonathan Traviesa are on view just outside the gallery. In addition, numerous events, performances, screenings, and conversations organized by artists from the collectives are occurring in various locations throughout the CAC through June 2012 (schedule posted on the CAC website). The CAC will produce an exhibition catalog at the conclusion of Spaces.

Artists in Spaces are Jessica Bizer, Kyle Bravo, Rachel Avena Brown, Amanda Cassingham-Bardwell, Stephen Collier & Brett LaBauve, Lee Deigaard, Angela Driscoll, Andrea Ferguson, Generic Art Solutions (G.A.S.) - Tony Campbell & Matt Vis, Laura Gipson, Susan Gisleson, James W. Goedert, Dave Greber, Brian Guidry, Shawn Hall, Rachel Jones, Morgana King, Robin Levy, Srdjan Loncar, Daphne Loney, Sophie T. Lvoff & Nathan C. Martin, Malcolm McClay, Natalie McLaurin, Aaron McNamee, Stephanie Patton, Yuka Petz, Brooke Pickett, Alex Podesta, Lala Raščić, Claire Jane Rau, Megan Roniger, Christopher Saucedo, Bob Snead, Dan Tague, Jonathan Traviesa, Ryan Watkins-Hughes, David Webber, and Jerald L. White.

http://press-street.com/antenna/
http://www.nolafront.org
http://goodchildrengallery.com