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marketing.colony /
equiptment acquisition /
symptom hall.space /
phoenix.cinecycle /
ancient futures.the net /
performance.women's work /
gender.performance /
do it yourself ethos-zines /
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history.books
Since 1990, artist-run centres in Canada have published catalogues and books to commemorate ten, twenty and twenty-five year anniversaries; titles include YYZ : Decalog and Whispered Art History : Twenty Years at the Western Front. VIDEO re/VIEW and Performance Art in Canada are organized as retrospective inventories. Soon, Toronto's A Space will mount its much-anticipated exhibit marking twenty-five years of multidisciplinary programming. Structurally, these projects stress the longevity and adaptability of the artist-run centres. Aiming for inclusiveness, the long enumerations of exhibitions over the years are an endurance marathon for readers. Perhaps this angle is due for reconsideration.
Coach House Press was Toronto's most experimental literary publisher, closely connected with the writing program at A Space in the 70's. Victor Coleman was a founder of both. Coach House encouraged micro-publishers like Rumour, and was internationally known for its translations of innovative fiction by women from Quebec. Coach House won't be mounting a nostalgic end-of-century retrospective, because it is history - dead after a 74% cut of $54,202. from its government of Ontario grants this summer, and the cancellation of a loan guarantee by the Ontario Development Corporation.
"(Mike Harris said that) Coach House Press went under not because the province cut its grants to the publisher but because 'they can't compete in the marketplace'...(that) the company blames the province for its demise 'probably speaks to their management capabilities.' Harris told reporters that what the Ontario Government is concerned with is 'the overall industry and how we ensure that new writers, for example, get access to be published and getting their start. In most countries in the world, that happens without government grants', Harris said. 'Unfortunately we have a history of government dependency, almost, in Ontario. We're trying to change that. We'd sooner see our share go... more directly to the artist than... to the profit-making company that depends on government taxpayers' dollars to compete.'"
James Rusk, "Publisher poorly run, Harris says", The Globe and Mail, July 17 1996.
Coach House's history is an example of the things that did not endure, while Mike Harris's badmouthing is exemplary of the method by which Ontario Conservatives make cultural policy statements. The trend among politicians of attacking specific artist-run centres is creeping up on us now, for example, in Metro Toronto politicians' recent invective against "Buddies in Bad Times". It brings to mind the rhetoric by politicians against the Toronto artist-run centre CEAC, after an editorial in its newsletter Strike that seemed to advocate kneecapping. In 1986, in The CEAC was Banned in Canada, Dot Tuer provided an account of CEAC's history, giving a context for the moment when politicians intervened to pull its funding. This alternative history traces gaps, fissures and breakdown, in the context of wider economic and political issues. As governments retract their support for artist-run culture, it is critical to locate the antecedents for this, and to identify our alternative sites of practice. Martin Heath's film and performance space, the proliferation of zines, nomad curators working in bars and storefronts, angry women hackers, writers and performers - provide an irrepressible source of replenishing energy. Authors of alternative histories will seek this, as artists shift their operations from one bit of holy ground to the next.
