Thesis (M.S.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Accompanied by 11 .pdf files and four .jpg files. Includes bibliographical references (p. 30-31).

This dissertation examines the development of alternative spaces in Los Angeles from 1970 to 1990. In the absence of museum support during the 1970s, artists in Los Angeles—many of whom were women, queer, racially diverse, young, politically active, and pushing the boundaries of new media—began to create organizations to provide the resources they lacked. I argue that this flourishing network of alternative spaces became one of Los Angeles’s most significant art-historical developments in the latter half of the twentieth century. This emergent contemporary art scene was defined largely in opposition to the city’s principal cultural repository, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and formed the primary support structure for contemporary artists and exhibitions between the 1974 closure of the Pasadena Art Museum and the launch of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) exhibition program in 1983. The resulting complex of artist-run organizations laid the groundwork for the rebranding of Los Angeles as a capital of contemporary art and culture in the twenty-first century. My study is divided into three chapters, each of which focuses on the history and legacy of a different alternative institution. Chapter one examines the Woman’s Building (1973-1991) through this feminist institution’s exhibition and pedagogical programs, with a focus on the Feminist Studio Workshop (1973-1981). Members of the Woman’s Building sought to transform their Los Angeles community by educating both the women who came there to study and the audiences that encountered their work. The second chapter traces the history of LAICA (Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, 1974-1987), which became the city’s first non-profit exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art. Through its exhibitions and publication, Journal, LAICA validated and disseminated Southern California’s artistic production to national and international audiences. The third chapter introduces LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 1978-present), which emerged out of a community mural program to become the preeminent laboratory for experimental art in Los Angeles. The diverse group of artists who founded LACE established a democratically operated organization that prioritized artistic freedom. These three institutions anchored a network of alternative spaces that transformed the cultural landscape in Los Angeles. / 2022-07-08T00:00:00Z

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T16:03:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 122534.pdf: 24958167 bytes, checksum: a80366a4099c53d26f4e5b0849f6fa23 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work frames the performance art as an attitude that reclaims agency in the production of the space, seeking a more democratic engagement with the everyday. Having no established structure, technique or media, performance art is here understood in relation to the context where it is inserted or from where it emerges. In order to base the discussion in more concrete examples, some groups identified as part of an alternative spaces movement in New York will be analyzed and contrasted with other works associated with the notion of overidentification. Each generation of alternative spaces can be related to specific conditions that depend on economy, technology and the level of engagement with the mainstream. It is very likely that alternative strategies have been stimulated, cooptated and subverted to serve economic purposes forcing contemporary practices to find new strategies of resistance such as the deviated use of technological devices or the overidentification as described by Slavoj i ek. This thesis proposes a crossdisciplinary approach, suggesting to look at the performer as a sort of cultural hacker who attempts to manipulate the actual manipulation. / Este trabalho propõe uma leitura da performance art como forma de reivindicar a condicao do artista como um produtor do espaco , buscando um engajamento mais democratico com estruturas sociais, através de poéticas, meios e técnicas artísticas que dialogam com o contexto do qual emergem e no qual incidem. O texto se estrutura a partir da analise de dois posicionamentos opostos, tomando como referência os espacos alternativos de Nova York, a partir dos anos 60, e a ideia de superidentificacao. A transformacao dos espacos alternativos e das condicões econômicas e de producao d o s a r t i s t a s é p e s q u i s a d a e m r e l a c a o a o desenvolvimento da cultura digital, e das formas de economia a ela relacionadas, considerando também as diferentes formas de cooptacao, controle direto e indireto e a relacao destes projetos com algumas formas de subvencao. Em contraste com o posicionamento alternativo, a nocao de superidentificacao, teorizada por Slavoj i ek é trazida à tona, buscando investigar possíveis formas de resistência que se fundam nao mais em oposicao aos sistemas criticados, mas a partir de sua propria estrutura, funcionando como uma espécie de hacking cultural.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work consists of ethnographic study on two theater groups of Santa Maria RS, the group EMAET and the TeatroVagaMundo. These groups have distinct features: the former is a theater school for people who are not actors/actresses and the latter constitutes itself as a professional/independent theater group. However both also carry out their works beyond the theater building, conventional space of the theater. It is mainly due to this characteristic that these groups were chosen for this study. Therefore the objective of this work is to understand the theatrical productions of these groups through participant observation in their quotidian of classes and/or rehearsals and performances, as cultural performances based on the theoretical scope of the performance studies at theater and anthropology and in discussions about street, street theater and alternative space categories. / Este trabalho consiste em um estudo etnográfico sobre dois grupos de teatro de Santa Maria RS, o Grupo EMAET e o Teatro VagaMundo. Estes grupos possuem características distintas: o primeiro se trata de uma escola de teatro para não atores e o segundo se constitui como um grupo de teatro profissional/ independente. No entanto, ambos realizam seus trabalhos também para além do edifício teatral, espaço convencional do teatro. É, sobretudo, devido a esta característica que estes grupos foram escolhidos para este estudo. O objetivo deste trabalho, portanto, é compreender as produções teatrais destes grupos através da observação participante em seus cotidianos de aulas e/ ou ensaios e apresentações, como performances culturais, com base no escopo teórico dos estudos da performance no teatro e na antropologia e em discussões sobre as categorias de rua, teatro de rua e espaço alternativo.

Les années 1970 sont une période de changement pour le monde de l’art américain qui se tourne vers une vision pluraliste de l’art où triomphent l’installation, la performance, l’art vidéo, les écrits d’artistes et la photographie. Dans plusieurs grandes villes, des lieux d’exposition d’un nouveau genre apparaissent simultanément sous le nom d’espaces alternatifs. À New York et Buffalo, le 112 Greene Street, Artists Space (à NY) et Hallwalls (à Buffalo) sont trois espaces où règne un esprit d’expérimentation et de contestation, opposé aux normes esthétiques et aux logiques institutionnelles et marchandes qui dominent le monde de l’art. Comment se construit dès lors l’identité alternative de ces trois espaces et quelle place occupent-ils sur la scène artistique des années 1970 ?Lieux d’exposition marginaux situés dans des quartiers industriels en déclin, le 112 Greene Street, Artists Space et Hallwalls sont des structures avant-gardistes qui produisent des œuvres expérimentales (installations, performance, vidéo) et développent des systèmes de fonctionnement renforçant le pouvoir des artistes. Mais ce modèle alternatif se trouve immédiatement menacé par la précarité artistique qui caractérise ces structures. Le 112, Artists Space et Hallwalls s’institutionnalisent alors peu à peu pour survivre et acquièrent un nouveau statut au sein du monde de l’art : reconnus à la fin de la décennie comme des lieux indispensables à la valorisation de l’art contemporain, l’alternative qu’ils proposent est désormais moins fonctionnelle qu’esthétique. / The 1970s was a decade when important changes took place in the American art world, with a pluralistic approach to art, in which installations, performances, video art, artists books and photography represented new and innovative art forms. Amidst this diversity of practices, new exhibition venues were created in former industrial loft buildings, under the generic name of alternative spaces. In New York City and Buffalo, 112 Greene Street (NYC), Artists Space (NYC) and Hallwalls (Buffalo) were three spaces in which a spirit of protest and a desire for artistic experimentation prevailed, questioning the aesthetic norms of a mainstream art world dominated by institutional and commercial paradigms. Facing a powerful normative art world, how do these three spaces defined their alternative identities and their roles regarding the development of new art forms?From the moment of their births in the early 1970s, 112 Greene Street, Artists Space and Hallwalls represented marginal artistic venues. As avant-gardist exhibition spaces, they were geared towards experimental art and the development of new organizational systems in which artists had more power. However, their alternative status was rapidly threatened by the problem of their economic survival. During the decade, 112 Greene Street, Artists Space and Hallwalls thus progressively became more institutionalized, gaining in artistic maturity and developing a new recognition within the art world. By the late 1970s, as they grew more legitimate in their exhibition of experimental art, the alternative they offered, however, had become less functional and more aesthetic.

KM II. An analysis of Malmö Art Museum’s satellite space as extra-institutional practice maps the activities of the hitherto unexplored satellite exhibition space KM II, including the 14 exhibitions that were shown in KM II’s two spaces in Malmö’s harbor and in the suburb Rosengård. The essay contributes new perspectives on extra-institutional exhibition practices by analyzing KM II as an actor on the then much discussed art scene of Malmö, during the years 1992 to 1994. The essay also describes trans-local artistic connections over the Baltic Sea, pri- marily between Malmö and Hamburg. I describe the extra-institutional practice of KM II through the model “The Public as Alternative” (Det offentliga som alternativ). The practice created favorable conditions for extensive and often paid artistic work in an unconventional exhibition space, which also made KM II meet the strained situation on the local art scene, partly caused by the financial crisis of 1992. Last, the essay examines the complex relationship between the exhibitions, the institution, the place, and the audience, that made the extra-institutional status of KM II dissolve at Rosengård, during a time that can be described as a transitional phase in museum education.