Gavin Murphy

Artist-Run Europe Gavin Murphy

Part how-to manual, part history, and part socio-political critique, Artist-Run Europe looks at the conditions, organizational models, and role of artist-led practice within contemporary art and society. The aim is to show how artist-run practice manifests itself, how artist-run spaces are a distinctive and central part of visual art culture, and how they present a complex, heterogeneous, and necessary set of alternatives to the art institution, museum, and commercial gallery.

In a self-reflexive, critically questioning process, contributions discuss and analyze areas such as: What position do artist-run spaces occupy within the field of contemporary art today? Should they stand in opposition to or in parallel to other art-world structures? How is value ascribed to these often transitory practices, and is this value recognized within the field? How are these spaces organized? Can artist-run spaces develop and be sustained without the need to institutionalize? What do artist-run spaces add to the ecology of the civil society? What can we say about future (or hoped for) trajectories?

Such a publication is timely and unique, with case studies of spaces and projects: Triangle France, Transmission Gallery, Pallas Projects/Studios, Eastside Projects, Catalyst Arts, Pink Cube, Secession, Dienstgebaeude, Supermarket, 126 Artist-led Gallery, and The Artist-led Archive; and an expansive and detailed index of artist-run spaces in Europe. It will seek to develop and encourage discourse on the subject within the wider field of contemporary practice, be a source for academics and students, and act as a practical tool for those running or wishing to set up artist-run spaces.