I. Prologue
“The past is prologue.” True, but one cannot linger all one’s life over the introduction any more than one can linger too much over the art of the past. … Such nostalgia only conceals a lack of sympathy with, a lack of knowledge of, or worse, panic over the now. Art must always struggle to build onto the past, to break it down if necessary, to free itself from convention and rule as to create newly, vigorously, venturesomely with imagination and individuality. (Wagstaff 2-3)
~Sam Wagstaff
When engaging my teenaged dance students in movement improvisation, I often encourage them to begin by softening their focus, attempting to see/sense the whole space and everyone in it at once. There’s magic in the transition from the initial nervous giggling that often accompanies the seemingly inevitable collisions, to the interweaving organism they become when their kinesthetic antenna are finely tuned. “It’s OK to turn your head,” I remind them. Soon their heads float atop fluid spines and they are moving freely through space, traveling forward and back, responding to one another’s subtle cues, transitioning smoothly in and out of laser focus and 360˚ sensing. Over time they become proficient with “thinking on their feet” as they make split-second decisions informed by past encounters and opportunities presenting themselves in the moment, while anticipating and contributing to emerging patterns that have yet to unfold.
My recent research interests have required a similar kind of dance lately. While it is certainly easy to romanticize the past, peering longingly through a sepia lens, I have found that a fluid movement of the head on the spine, allowing for calculated glances back now and then, can inform the experience of the present moment and the impulse of forward movement. Tracing the historic presence and impact of contemporary performance practices in and around the city of my birth, with a particular focus on dance, my investigations have called for the same convergence of insights gleaned from the past, recognition of present opportunities, and connecting the dots into possible future outcomes. For me, art making has become inextricably linked to the sustainability of the larger arts ecosystem and I am no longer content to rely on someone else to ensure its health. So, I have sought to understand this junction where past, present, and future meet in a single place. The place, Hartford, Connecticut offers a point of departure as I ask questions that are likely relevant in any city, but without which all context is lost and isolation is inevitable.
In the previous leg of my research journey, I examined the curatorial practices of Arthur Everett “Chick” Austin, the Director of Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art from 1927-1944. Throughout that investigation, three questions served as guideposts:
Through what mechanism is the cultural landscape of a place understood? What assurances or warnings about its capacity for forward movement have already been issued for those who would listen? How can these insights be of value to those who would later inherit the place?
The answers to these questions did not emerge as fixed or neatly packaged lessons hidden in the historical account of Austin’s directorship. Instead, Austin’s tenure at the Wadsworth Atheneum served as an initial point in a constellation which, when connected, may offer context for present day strategies. Under Austin’s leadership, the museum acquired and/or exhibited significant works of modern art. And in the Avery Memorial Theater he helped design, the museum premiered Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts, the first choreographic works of Alwin Nikolais with his German Expressionist mentor Truda Kaschmann, presented works by Martha Graham and Agnes de Mille, and sponsored George Balanchine’s immigration to the United States. In Austin’s hands, Hartford demonstrated a cultural expansion and contraction that suggests both an optimistic readiness to engage with the world and a rigid conservatism. Despite the tenuous balance between these two extremes, Austin’s charismatic promotion of modern art and deep engagement in various aspects of Hartford’s cultural landscape served to nurture the former trait, if only for a finite period of time.
So what became of the seeds of contemporaneity planted during the Austin years? That question echoed prominently at the conclusion of my initial research. However, while I was immersed in the Wadsworth Atheneum’s archives, it became evident that another wave of contemporary performance activity emerged in Hartford, following a significant period of apparent silence. One press release announced a weekend of “avant-garde dance” at the Wadsworth in 1965 with a program featuring a work commissioned by Yvonne Rainer, and performed alongside fellow Judson Dance Theater luminaries: Robert Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs, Judith Dunn, Sally Gross, Deborah Hay, and Steve Paxton (“News Release” 1965). Another press release announced the 1967 performance of Anna Halprin’s pioneering contemporary dance work, Parades and Changes, with audiences traveling through Avery Memorial Theater and the Avery Court gallery (“News Release” 1967). I soon learned from the museum’s current archival staff that Sam Wagstaff served as their Curator of Contemporary Art from 1961-1968, and was likely responsible for programming these two events. Further investigation revealed the premiere of Merce Cunningham’s Winterbranch at the museum in 1964, with Rauschenberg as set and costume designer (Dance Capsule n. pag.), attracting artists like Deborah Hay and Carolee Schneemann as witnesses to the event (Hay n. pag.). Wagstaff would go on to be a foremost collector and proponent of photography as a fine art, as well as Robert Mapplethorpe’s partner and patron in New York. But first he would test his contemporary tastes within the confines of the Atheneum and Hartford. And even after his departure from the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1968, something of this momentum sustained itself, as evidenced by the museum’s commissioning of Twyla Tharp’s 1969 Dancing in the Streets.
This growing awareness of the Wadsworth’s performance programming during the Wagstaff years suggests, for me, a pattern of sorts. Like Austin, Wagstaff was a white male, generationally privileged by race, gender, class and education. On the surface, the two men were not very different from the city’s aristocracy who served as the museum’s governing body, and for whom the museum was likely viewed as an ancestral legacy. Of course both men’s relatively closeted homosexuality and tastes for the avant-garde were outside the mainstream, which may have put them at odds with the city’s and museum’s leadership at times. However, Austin and Wagstaff could certainly move more freely between worlds than if they had been from less easily concealed marginalized groups. From this vantage point, they were uniquely positioned to usher art of the margins into the mainstream. And they each did do their part to facilitate this exchange. In the end, the fact that they were operating within long established cultural institutions likely provided too rigid a framework for them to push the edges as much as they may have been inclined. Both men eventually ended their affiliations with the museum. In Austin’s case, his departure came after a period of growing conflict with the museum’s board of directors. Nonetheless, both men catalyzed a degree of change in the museum and the city by serving as gateways for contemporary trends to begin making their way into the cultural establishment.
This however, appeared to be insufficient for either man, and in Wagstaff’s case, the narrow opening he was able to create for contemporary art was certainly not enough to satisfy the shift taking place in the world outside. During his tenure at the Wadsworth, something was brewing beyond the museum walls. America was in the midst of revolutionary change at seemingly every level. The 1960s and 1970s were marked by upheaval and the unavoidable collective soul searching—or writhing—which precipitated the Civil Rights movement, Feminist movement, nascent Gay Rights movement, antiwar movement, and other such forms of political/societal dissent. Across the country and the world, youth were questioning, and in some cases, actively working to dismantle virtually every established convention. So in a landscape such as this, organizations like the Wadsworth, the oldest public art museum in the nation represented for this restless generation a complacency that did not or could not serve them. Old institutions have often stood the test of time by valuing stability over adaptability, the tried and true over change, and the preservation of conventional methodologies over the latest innovation. This period of tumult demanded new models.
During the 1960s and 1970s, an alternative art movement emerged alongside, and in some cases, was woven throughout the collective efforts of young people to stretch against societal confines. Through these largely artist-run collectives housed in vacant industrial buildings across the country, new relationships between artists, spaces, communities, audiences, organizational structures, funding sources, and the conventions of the established arts organization were tested. In my own city, several alternative art spaces were founded, infusing my childhood in Hartford with a sense of cultural dynamism and diverse expression. Real Art Ways (RAW), one such alternative space was founded in 1975, and is among the last of these organizations still standing. RAW is thriving in an entirely different world than the one that conceived it, and its ability to adapt to the changing landscape while maintaining its alternative identity is what makes it particularly fascinating. As I continue my research journey through Hartford’s contemporary art practices, this period of alternativity seems to have been the most relevant in shaping the city I have now inherited and informs my own artistic and curatorial practice most directly.
In what remains of this paper, I intend to examine the characteristics of these alternative spaces, and the circumstances that created their necessity. While the phenomenon played out all across the country with each organization responding uniquely to the needs of its own environment, and across a wide range of artistic disciplines and social concerns, New York’s alternative visual arts movement is well documented. I will use this documentation to trace common denominators, ultimately using that information to view my own city’s attempts at alternativity from a contemporary perspective. Real Art Ways will serve as a case study, and ultimately as an opportunity to gather clues about what role alternative art organizations play in Hartford’s current arts ecosystem. For me, three key questions drive this leg of the journey:
- In what way was the nation, and Hartford in particular, ripe for the founding of an organization like Real Art Ways in 1975?
- What were the organization’s founders hungry for that existing organizations were ill-equipped or unwilling to provide?
- Could an organization like Real Art Ways be conceived, find its footing, and thrive now, given both the social, political and economic realities we face in the current day and the needs artists and communities face in defining their relationships to each other.
II. Alternative Art Movement
This idea of alternativity was expressed in a wide range of activities during the 1960s, 1970s, and since. In her introduction to the book, Playing by the Rules: Alternative Thinking/Alternative Spaces, Heather Kouris reminds us that the search for an alternative approach during this period was applied to all aspects of life and catalyzed the seeming proliferation of “communes, vegetarianism, alternative medicine, alternative spirituality practices, swinging, political activism, green living, alternative schools, alternative music, [and the overall emphasis on] working collectively … (Kouris 21).” In many ways, each manifestation of this alternativity grew out of a distinct set of circumstances and environments, satisfied distinct needs, and was shaped by distinct personalities. However, whether generated from the inside or externally imposed, alternative as an overarching descriptor likely indicates some common motivation, method or characteristic across the wide spread phenomenon. In fact, the term is still used to categorize these kinds of activities, which may tell us something about the intent driving it, the perceptions surrounding it, and certainly warrants further consideration.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines alternative as something that is “different from the usual or conventional … [or] functioning outside the established cultural, social, or economic system” (‘alternative’). Armed with this definition, we come to see alternative as opposition, contrast or choice. In one of several essays on the topic, Julie Ault wrestles with the use of the word. On one hand she suggests,
[t]he very word alternative produces endless arguments. It is provocative and meaningless… Naming oneself alternative sets up both distance from and bondage to dominant institutions and ideas. It implies both a subordinate and a rebellious, perhaps productive, relationship to power. (“Of Several Minds” 94-95)
Those defined by the term are put in direct relationship to some dominant force and is therefore bound by this oppositional point of reference. For this reason, according to Ault, such language is often rejected by the most radical groups who see themselves, not as existing in the margins relative to an established center, but existing as their own center, pushing established systems to the margins by default (“Of Several Minds” 95). At the same time, she offers praise for the idea of alternative, suggesting that context matters most. She affirms that, “… the idea of alternative, in some genuine sense, still carries exciting possibilities of being responsive—even reactive—but also constructive, creative, and generative” (“Of Several Minds” 96). In either case, alternative is defined by an oppositional relationship to the perceived status quo.
Calling this convergence of alternative activity a movement comes with its own set of complications. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a movement as “a change of place or position or posture … a tactical or strategic shifting … [or] a series of organized activities working toward an objective” (‘movement’). It is clear, from the sheer volume of alternative activity during the 60s and 70s, that a change was instigated in the approach to so many areas of life thereafter, inside or outside of the mainstream. And while approaches to organizational structure varied, there is evidence that the activity had been decidedly intentional and strategic (Ault, “For the Record” 3). Nonetheless, there are those who find fault with the tendency for categorizations to erase distinction. For our purposes, however, I think it is safe to refer to the phenomenon in question as a movement as our intent is to identify commonalities, and to understand how local manifestations fit into the big picture.
Defining art may be an even more challenging proposition, particularly in this context. The Merriam-Webster‘s encyclopedic definition of the word can only be explained by the very wide spread change the movement catalyzed across the country. Careful not to exclude the visual art practices that grew up in the last fifty years, the dictionary defines art as:
[a] visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination. The term art encompasses diverse media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation. The various visual arts exist within a continuum that ranges from purely aesthetic purposes at one end to purely utilitarian purposes at the other. This should by no means be taken as a rigid scheme, however, particularly in cultures in which everyday objects are painstakingly constructed and imbued with meaning. (‘art’)
Aside from the problematic omission of any art form outside the visual arts, this definition will serve our purposes as well. As we learned with the word alternative, the movement was intended to provide an oppositional relationship to the status quo. So, with that in mind, any definition of art provides a point of departure, something to push against.
So, what were they pushing against? The focus of this essay, in large part is to explore the establishment of new alternative art spaces throughout the country as part of the alternative art movement of the 1960s and 70s. This investigation is framed by an understanding of the period’s characteristic resistance to established conventions and structures, and by the strategic shifting of position relative to the expression of skill or imagination. Likewise, alternative art spaces existed in opposition to something else. In my previous research, I learned that the 1934 opening of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Avery Memorial extension stands among Arthur Everett Austin’s outstanding achievements during his tenure at the Wadsworth Atheneum (Gaddis 35). The first museum in the country to boast the pristine, unembellished, white walled interior of the International Style, Austin and his museum epitomized Modernism for the rest of the country. In time, however, this innovation would become the assumed standard, the ideal.
As Brian O’ Doherty asserts in his iconic book, Inside the White Cube: the Ideology of the Gallery Space,
[a]n image comes to mind of a white, ideal space that, more than any single picture, may be the archetypal image of twentieth century art; it clarifies itself through a process of historical inevitability unusually attached to the art it contains. … The ideal gallery subtracts from the artwork all cues that interfere with the fact that it is “art.” … This gives the space a presence possessed by other spaces where conventions are preserved through the repetition of a closed system of values. Some of the sanctity of a church. The formality of the courtroom, the mystique of the experimental laboratory joins with the chic design to produce a unique chamber of esthetics.” (O’Doherty 14).
O’Doherty paints a picture of sacred spaces, consecrated, set apart from the everyday. In spaces such as these, rituals and codes of conduct are fixed and understood. Individual or natural impulses are subject to a higher authority: God, priest, judge or scientist. The laws imposed by these authorities are the standard by which value, legitimacy, virtue and objectivity are measured. These spaces are not intended for the uninitiated. Instead they epitomize defined hierarchical roles, clearly designed as vehicles for the preservation of the rituals and relics they contain for posterity. They are, in many cases, spaces for the chosen few. O’Doherty draws a powerful parallel between the perceived alienation imposed by the Modernist museum gallery space and these single purpose dedicated spaces:
The outside world must not come in, so windows are sealed off. Walls are painted white. The ceiling becomes the source of light. The wooden floor is polished so that you click along clinically, or carpeted so that you pad soundlessly, resting the feet while the eyes have at the wall. … Unshadowed, white, clean, artificial … Art exists in a kind of eternity of display … (15).
The alternative art movement pushed against the white cube and the system it represented, pushing with enough force to propel art of the period, and its means of distribution, in new directions. Where marginalized groups or experimental artistic practices had limited access to the established system, artist-led interventions were initiated by necessity. Efforts to dismantle oppressive structures were the hallmark of the day, and the idea that art could exist or be produced apart from these realities were brought into question and tested. Artists’ concerns about “accessibility, portability, and low-cost production” motivated them to invent new ways of making art and new ways of distributing that art (Ault, “For the Record”). According to Ault, among the interventions they initiated were curatorial projects intended to “extend their work beyond the studio, to assume control of presentation, or to take their art to the streets” (“For the Record” 6). “Curating”, she asserts, “is … a political process of inclusion and exclusion. A hierarchy of cultural practices is evident when legitimizing institutions such as museums deem what is worthy of their support and what isn’t” (Ault, “For the Record” 6).
Further, Ault points to several key factors as contributors to the proliferation of alternative art spaces in New York City. The most significant of these were:
… an abundance (some would say an overabundance) of artists; a culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse urban population in flux; the political context of various civil rights and liberation struggles; the availability of affordable residential and commercial rents; a plethora of neglected or underutilized urban sites—spaces and places in transition; an unrestricted public sphere (as compared to the present); the growth of public funding for culture; and the city’s status as a power art center. (“For the Record” 6)
In 1969, epitomizing the convergence of art and politics, the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC) emerged as a catalyzing force in politicizing many of those seeking alternatives to the complex art ecosystem in New York at the time. “The AWC was an antihierarchical, democratically open organization of artists” (Moore 196). Confronting the behemoth Museum of Modern Art, the group had its start with the removal of Vassilakis Takis’s art work from the museum as a protest in support of artists’ rights. Rooted in the civil rights struggle, the group’s thorough and clearly articulated agenda demanded “equal exhibition opportunities for artists of color and women and expanded legal rights for all artists” (Moore 196-7). Their efforts can deemed successful as they were effective in getting the art establishment to engage in dialogue, in bringing a large group of prominent artists together in solidarity, and inspiring the birth of several subgroups which expanded and carried the coalitions’ aims forward. Lasting less than three years, its existence led to the founding the Studio Museum of Harlem, El Museo del Barrio, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts and other “arts centers committed to articulating identity for groups not usually represented or addressed in the existing major museums” (Ault, For the Record” 5).
The availability and affordability of raw spaces during this period made it feasible to conceive alternatives to the art establishment’s white cube. Martin Beck uses 112 Workshop/112 Greene Street, which had its beginning in the fall of 1970, as an example of how the raw nature of the space informed the work made and exhibited there. In its first exhibition, which evolved over the course of its 3 month duration, artists were free to use the space in ways that were unheard of in a conventional gallery. Beck quotes Jeffrey Lew, the building’s owner and an artist: “In the beginning … we were reluctant to fix [112 Workshop] up, not wishing to disturb the raw power of the space. … In most galleries you can’t scratch the floor. … Here you can dig a hole in it (qtd. in Beck 154).” For Beck, raw-ness figures prominently in way 112 Workshop, and many early alternative spaces, were shaped. Beck adds that,
“Raw”—with its connotations of natural, crude, unrefined, unprocessed, rough, unfinished—became a metaphor for freedom from restrictive definitions of art making, alluding to a frontier state where boundaries are negotiated and challenged and where space is explored and extended (254-255).
Alternative spaces were often characterized by repurposed industrial spaces which blurred the lines between the art and space. This was certainly true of 112 Workshop as well as the first exhibit at P.S. 1. At the same time that some artists’ were indulging in raw spaces, others were making effort to replicate the white cube within the shell of these once dilapidated structures. Beck accounts for this tendency by pointing to the availability of inexpensive building materials as well as the fact that some artists’ simply craved inclusion in the art world power system. Workshop, for example, though it epitomized raw in its inception, demonstrates the inevitability of the white cube. Operating under the name White Columns since 1979 and currently housed in its 4th location, the clean, white walled space is a decided departure from its original raw roots (White Columns n. pag.).
Nonetheless, in the early years of the alternative art movement, a reciprocity seemed to exist between much of the art of the period and the spaces that contained them. Whether in dilapidated industrial buildings, loft spaces, hotel kitchens or store fronts, this reciprocity could also be experienced in the collectivity of artists themselves. Irene Tsatsos refers to Food, “the restaurant-slash-artist project founded [in] 1971 by [Gordon] Matta-Clark and Caroline Goodden” as among the first alternative spaces (Tsatsos 65). With a wild assortment of menu items, including “whole bass encased in aspic, bone soup, and old shoes” (Tsatsos 65), Food attracted a group of artists who were eager to work together to circumvent the system. According to Tsatsos, Matta-Clark “realized that artists, at least those with whom he fraternized, craved connection and community with one another” (Tsatsos 66).
The importance of reciprocity was not confined to these relationships, however. Much of these alternative activities owed as much to government funding as they did to cheap space and political unrest for their existence. In the beginning, alternative spaces were reliant upon private funding for their survival. According to Brian Wallis, however, “[t]hings changed radically in 1972, when the National Endowment for the Arts began supplying substantial support for these local efforts” (Wallis 162). By 1978, with Brian O’Doherty, author of Inside the White Cube as Director of its Visual Arts Department, the NEA had added a separate funding category for artist’s spaces (Wallis 171). Wallis sees “a logic to the reciprocity between the NEA and the alternative art movement” (164, 171). Created in 1965 during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, the NEA was among a group of welfare programs developed at the time. As Wallis points out, “[i]t was meant to aid state policy by helping to achieve three specific ideological goals: to strengthen a sagging sector of the economy, to promote American cultural values abroad, and to make culture available to all Americans at home” (Wallis 171). Later, under President Richard Nixon’s administration, the effort to boost Cold War propaganda through the arts resulted in a significant budget increase of more than $100 million dollars between 1969 and 1977 (Wallis 171). Alternative art spaces all over the country could now depend on funding from the NEA and other government support structures to sustain them.
Many site this dependence on government funding as a cause of the subsequent demise of so many early alternative spaces. Wallis suggests that “even while providing subsidies to experimental artists, the NEA effectively neutralized dissent by instilling a self-regulating standard of professionalization” (Wallis 174). In order to access funds, loosely formed artist-led groups were required to establish themselves as nonprofit organizations. They formed boards of directors, and transformed their organizational structures to replicate conventional business models in order to accommodate granting guidelines. Long before the controversy surrounding the NEA Four, alternative spaces were systematically converted into the very institutions they were formed to oppose. Wallis puts it plainly by suggesting that “those everyday practices of social control, while less obvious than the blunt force of conservative politicians, may ultimately have exacted a far greater price from the original mission of the alternative space” (Wallis 164). As a result, social control was built into the heart of the system itself so that through the “NEA’s patronage of alternative spaces, social control supplanted [overt] censorship” (Wallis 177).
Julie Ault laments the institutionalization of the alternative art space, citing it as the reason for the demise of many of these organizations. As she sees it, “[i]n many instances, missions, rhetoric, inner workings, and public programming became entanglements of contradictory agendas, with incongruous results. Reflexivity, which is innate to alternative structures, gave way to proverbial institutional pathologies” (Ault, “Of Several Minds” 99). From this weakened state, so many of these organizations were ill equipped to stand on their own when censorship became a far more overt weapon against voices of dissent. With far less access to government funding, and atrophied private funding relationships, many alternative spaces faltered, or collapsed completely.
Can the future of alternativity rest securely in the hands of those organizations who have survived? Or is it the responsibility of the next generation of artists to dig deep into terms like alternative, art, and movement for our own meaning in terms like? Julie Ault reminds us of “the cyclical nature of conflicts between artists and cultural institutions and audiences: the only remedies for structural changes” (Ault, “Of Several Minds” 96). Raphael Rubenstein offers another perspective on this rise and fall of the alternative space in his essay “Tributary or Source”. Perhaps the answer to both questions can be found in his inquiry:
In most cases, an alternative space that has fulfilled its original mission is confronted with two options: to close or to turn into an institution. … If the people running a space choose the second route, the chances of it remaining “alternative” are pretty slim, so maybe the best kind of alternative space is the short lived one. Is there a third option? … Let’s imagine an alternative space that doesn’t close and doesn’t become an institution … but finds a way to continually evolve, perhaps by changing its mission, its name, its location, its protagonists. In short, after a certain point, for an alternative space to remain alternative it must become an alternative to itself. (Rubenstein 76)
III. Real Art Ways: A Brief Case Study
Over the course of the last several months, I have been engaged in a series of conversations with Will K. Wilkins, Executive Director of Real Art Ways since 1990. These conversations have been motivated, in part, by my desire to mine Hartford’s history for cultural treasure. Wilkins and I had one such conversation early on in my research about the Wadsworth Atheneum’s, Arthur Everett “Chick” Austin. At the time I was struck, by Wilkins’s admonition that my research be allowed to move forward in time, suggesting that the evidence I sought could be closer than I imagined. Since then, my investigation has led me from Chick Austin to Sam Wagstaff, and on to the alternative art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And embedded in the latter tale emerged the story of an alternative art space sitting in my own backyard, literally just beneath the window of my own little alternative space.
Real Art Ways, as it turns out is an example of one of the many art spaces that emerged as an alternative to Hartford’s established art system. It also happens to be one of the few organizations still operating, still thriving, and very much loyal to its alternative roots. This is not to suggest I was unaware of Real Art Ways’ place in the history of the alternative art movement. It is clear, however, that my investigation necessitated a full circle journey, and that the presence of Real Art Ways could only be fully appreciated in the context of this big picture.
Real Art Ways was founded in 1975 by 4 graduates of the Hartford Art School and the Hartt School of Music. As Wilkins puts it plainly, “[They were] a group of artists in a space that was cheap, creating a live/work environment” (Wilkins “Personal Interview”). Wilkins rattled off a lengthy list of organizations that were formed in the same period as Real Art Ways: Side Walk, a street theater group; Art Works, a visual arts gallery; Peace Train a traveling video van; the highly successful Big Fiddle Festival; Company One, a theater company where he saw a Suzan Lori Parks work; and the Artists Collective, a comprehensive arts training program celebrating the culture of the African Diaspora. Unlike Real Art Ways and the Artists Collective, all the other organizations on Will’s abbreviated list have since met their demise. Nonetheless, during this period, RAW and several other organizations were important active contributors to the city’s tremendous cultural vitality.
At its founding, Real Art Ways saw itself as an alternative to the “mainstream museum. … It wasn’t about objects, it was about people. It wasn’t about what was done in the past, it was about what’s being done right now” (Wilkins, “Where We Live”). Together with the founding collective of artists, Joseph Celli, experimental music composer and RAW’s charismatic Executive Director from 1975 until 1988, developed an interdisciplinary program. RAW’s online archives chronicle an array of experimental music, dance, visual art, film and poetry, from local and visiting guest artists.
As a dance artist myself, my imagination is particularly captured by evidence of a 1978 showing called, Solos and Duets by Connecticut Dancers, which featured works by Judy Dworin and Judi Tolomea at Christ Church Cathedral, two women who are still very active dance makers/educators in Hartford (“Archive: Real Art Ways, June 1978).
Like so many of the organizations developed during the alternative art movement, Real Art Ways benefited from the growth of government funding for the arts. According to Wilkins, three programs were pivotal in the early growth of RAW. First, the NEA allocated monies to each state with the mandate to establish state arts organizations (Wilkins, “Personal Interview”). Second, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which was initiated under President Nixon’s administration, provided funds to state and local municipalities for job creation (Nixon). Organizations throughout the country, RAW among them, were able to employ a substantial staff with CETA funds. For a young organization like RAW, the infusion of manpower allowed it to grow at an accelerated rate. Finally, RAW received direct funding from several NEA programs. Such funding, which could only be accessed by long established organizations like the Wadsworth Atheneum, The Hartford Symphony, and The Connecticut Opera (now defunct), was now available to organizations like Real Art Ways. For fifteen years, RAW could rely on annual guaranteed funds to support a substantial budget and a large staff. And then the culture wars began (Wilkins, “Personal Interview”).
By the time Wilkins arrived at RAW in 1990, the culture wars were already in full bloom, funding from the NEA had all but dried up, and the organization was not yet stabilized after being displaced from yet another location. Wilkins made a bold statement when he invited the NEA Four at RAW to perform in Hartford. Still, Wilkins refers to a kind of “avant-garde ghetto” that dominated RAW at the time—a sense of arts elitism (Wilkins, “Personal Interview”). In addition to diversifying its funding sources and re-establishing relationships with federal funding programs, Wilkins sought to reconnect with the community around RAW. In its longest enduring location in the Parkville neighborhood of Hartford, Wilkins has worked to make the space a welcoming environment for the largely Latino and growing Asian immigrant populations, as well as its suburban guests. The space functions much like a lounge, encouraging social engagement through a variety of programs. Along the way, the space has maintained its commitment to bringing the public in contact with experimental contemporary art practices.
Wilkins is unwavering in his description of Real Art Ways as an alternative space, though he acknowledges the evolution that was necessary for the organization to survive its youth. When asked if such an intervention could emerge today the way it did in the 1960s and 70s, Wilkins admits that is unlikely. The circumstances that birthed the alternative art movement were quite different from today’s. At the same time, Wilkins acknowledges the impulse to invent new models and push against established systems. Has Real Art Ways become the establishment? A review of the organizations budget would undoubtedly reveal a prolonged inequity between it and organizations like the Wadsworth, and within its name it carries the raw spirit of the movement. At the same, Real Art Ways enjoys a level of stability and longevity that establishes it alongside the city’s cultural institutions. Ault suggests that “[w]hen an alternative becomes a container or destination, it takes on a structural function and becomes a form of official or accepted dissent within an established system” (Ault, “Of Several Minds” 96). Perhaps Wilkins in positioning RAW to push boundaries from within the system. In either case, as I am reminded that alternative is defined by an oppositional relationship to the perceived status quo, I am inclined to echo Julie Ault’s earlier assertion that “…the idea of alternative, in some genuine sense, still carries exciting possibilities of being responsive—even reactive—but also constructive, creative, and generative” (Ault, “Of Several Minds” 96).
Works Cited
“Alternative.” Merriam Webster Dictionary. Encyclopedia Britannica Company, 2013. Merriam-webster.com. Web. 11 Apr. 2013
“Archive: Dancing in the Streets.” Twyla Tharp. Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation. 1965-2011. Web. 3 Feb. 2013.
“Archive: Real Art Ways.” RAW Archives. Real Art Ways. 1975-2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
“Art.” Merriam Webster Dictionary. Encyclopedia Britannica Company, 2013. Merriam-webster.com. Web. 11 Apr. 2013
Ault, Julie. “For the Record.” Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985. Ed. Julie Ault. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. 1-14. Print.
Ault, Julie. “Of Several Minds Over Time.” Playing by the Rules: Alternative Thinking/Alternative Spaces. Ed. Steven Rand. New York: Apexart, 2010. 94-105. Print.
Beck, Martin. “Alternative: Space.” Playing by the Rules: Alternative Thinking/Alternative Spaces. Ed. Steven Rand. New York: Apexart, 2010. 249-279. Print.
Gaddis, Eugene, ed. Avery Memorial: Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1983. Print.
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