Away from the Artist Run Centre
Emily Vey Duke
I've been avoiding writing on this on the principle that if one doesn't have anything nice to say one shouldn't say anything at all. I realised that every time I set pen to paper I was basically whining about how much I hated the year I spent at the Khyber--not, perhaps, such a useful thing to share, because in essence I do believe in artist run culture. It's jut that I feel, as I have written elsewhere, that it's settled itself in an uneasy spot between charity and highbrow culture. We desperately need funding (especially in the chronically underfunded Maritimes), and outreach work with disenfranchised peoples (especially young ones) is one of the ways to access it. That's great. That's necessary. But I don't think we are the most useful service providers for the disenfranchised, who may have more pressing needs than the expressing of their inner selves through the tropes of contemporary art. There may be other more appropriate services to provide, and I don't know how it plays out to have us at artist run centres competing for the money that could be used to fund other stuff, like needle exchanges, women's shelters and the Mic Mac Friendship Centre.
On the other hand, we've built our identity so entirely around opposition to the commercial art world that we can't effectively participate in the whole highbrow scene. I mean, not that we would want to. Because we're activists and we only want public money in the arts, not dirty capitalist money. Especially not in the Maritimes, where there really isn't any to turn our noses up at anyway.
And another thing: in my experience, artists are bad at business, and running a centre is like running a little corporation. And why do we have to program art by committee? Why do we have to do everything by committee, when nobody actually wants to be on the committees anyway? Why not just turn it over to a benevolent tyrant? The constant to-ing and fro-ing between micromanagement and abandoning staff to the wind on the part of boards seems to be an epidemic in artist run organisations (both in Canada and the US).
But the fact of the matter is I relied so totally on the existence of artist run centres and publications for the development of my identity as a young artist that I feel like a complete asshole for laying out these complaints. Specifically, I relied on the Khyber (once known as Starracles, the first place I had a solo show), OO Gallery, Eyelevel, Fuse, Mix, C and Public Magazines. These are the institutions that brought me out of utter self-distain. Unlike some magical others who seem to thrive without public approbation, I needed some external measure of my worth, and it was artist run culture that provided me with it.
It may seem hopelessly simplistic, but when I look back at my life to date I see this: I was unhappy because I felt powerless and unattended to. I spoke to the public at large through artist-run outlets. The public accepted in some measure what I had to say. Now I am happy because I feel empowered and attended to.
Certainly there are other factors. I have a job I love (which I got because I had an exhibition and publication history); I have a partner I love (whom I met at the Khyber); I have a dog and two cats (none of whom have anything to do with artist run culture at all). But the connection is not so tenuous. For that reason I do feel that my refusal to participate in artist run culture as anything but a parasite (I'm happy, for example, to show work and collect CARFAC fees) is a rejection of my younger self--or at least a refusal to take care of her little sisters and brothers.
So here I am, mildly guilty, pretty recalcitrant. The one thing I feel certain I can count on is the fact that my opinion will change in the future in ways I can't anticipate now but that will make perfect sense as they unfold. And while it's unlikely that I'll find myself at he helm of another ARC, it isn't so farfetched to imagine that someday I'll get over my bad memories of the Khyber directorship year (sometimes I still have bad dreams about it) and join a board. And then I probably won't do a very good job.