Artists in the City: SPACE in ’68 and beyond book launch

Sat 17 Mar 2018, 3-5pm
SPACE Mare Street
FREE & all welcome

Soon available for pre-order

Artists in the City: SPACE in ’68 and beyond explores the early history of an artist-led organisation which broke new ground by taking on large properties for artist studios in London, which it has continued doing for 50 years, finding space for artists in a changing city. The model of artists seizing the initiative and working with city authorities and landlords to provide studios was new and hugely influential. It was copied around the world, for example at PS1 New York and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.

The book examines the late ‘60s context in London from which SPACE emerged, to understand what has changed and what remains the same for artists in the city. Essays consider concepts such as artist-run initiative, Do it Yourself, and how artists formed unions to tackle their economic exploitation, deconstructing the idea of artist as gentrifier to understand in more detail the creative effect or agency of SPACE and artists in the city.

Essays by artists Bridget Riley and Peter Sedgley with an introduction by Anna Harding, plus Mel Dodd, William Fowler, Larne Abse Gogarty, Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, J&K – Janne Schäfer and Kristine Agergaard, Robert Kudielka, Courtney J. Martin, Alicia Miller, David Morris, Neil Mulholland, Naomi Pearce, Shirley Read, Ana Torok and Andrew Wilson. 

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Speaker

Andrew Wilson is senior curator of modern and contemporary British art, and archives, at Tate Britain. He co-curated the 2017 retrospective of David Hockney at Tate Britain and tour to Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Supported by

THE BRIDGET RILEY ART FOUNDATION