Alanna Heiss & Martha Wilson, Alternative Spaces

A conversation in which Franklin Furnace founder Martha Wilson queries Clocktower Gallery and MoMA PS1 founder Alanna Heiss about the origins and development of the alternative space movement. Both women were driving participants in this New York art world revolution that began in the 1970's.

The program is presented in four parts:

Section 1: Alanna Heiss and Martha Wilson discuss the beginning of Heiss's arts production experience in England and her transition to the avant-garde art world of 1970's New York.

Section 2: Martha Wilson and Alanna Heiss unpack the experience of producing the famed exhibition Underneath the Brooklyn Bridge and Heiss's initial forays into finding and repurposing unclaimed space for arts production.

Section 3: Wilson and Heiss discuss the advent of the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc., losing arts spaces to fire, and trying to use decommissioned space station equipment in exhibition spaces.

Section 4: Heiss and Wilson explore the importance of decentralization for arts organizations in the 1970's and the transition from the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc. to PS1.

More on Martha Wilson:
Feminist artist and gallery director, Martha Wilson, focuses her attention on female subjectivity through role-playing, costume transformations, and “invasions” of other people’s personae. Wilson's career began in Nova Scotia in the early seventies, and grew after her move to New York in 1974, where she became a well known and respected artist. In 1976, she founded and continues to direct the Franklin Furnace, an artist-run space. This space champions the exploration, promotion, and preservation of artists’ books, installation art, video, online, and performance art. These works further challenge institutional norms, the roles artists play within society, and expectations about what constitutes as an acceptable art medium.

Click here to read a full biography of Alanna Heiss.

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