Frieze | Brian Butler, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, and Diana Thater
Diana Thater The bedrock of the LA arts scene has always been its schools: CalArts, UCLA, ArtCenter College of Design. When my generation was starting to show work in the early 1990s, we were very ambitious because we had teachers like John Baldessari, Mike Kelley, Patti Podesta, Charles Ray and Nancy Rubins. None of us had any money but we didn’t care. Why not just have a show in your living room?
Brian Butler When the art-market bubble burst in 1989, I had just come back from Europe, where lots of gallerists – including Christian Nagel and Maureen Paley – were showing in domestic spaces. I found an available townhouse at 1301 Franklin Street in Santa Monica that just made sense.
DT I think a lot hinged on the recession, followed by the Gulf War and the LA riots. The city went dark for a few years. The only pinpoints of light were those domestic spaces and the artists who showed in them, and congregated at Museum of Contemporary Art openings. We all knew each other: everyone was either a teacher, a student or a recent graduate.
If you think about it, historically, experimentation always happens when there’s no market, there’s a recession or a war. In the 1960s, there was Fluxus and Judson Dance Theater: things that didn’t make money but advanced ideas. I think it’s during these low points in socio-economic history that our culture really leaps forward.
Conversation continued on Frieze.com