the radicality of teaming up.

"The group's responses are as open-ended as its visual rhetoric is gnomic, confirming legal scholar Lawrence Lessig's suggestion in The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (2001) that 'not knowing how a resource will be used' is a good thing."

-Pamela M. Lee, a Professor at Stanford, writing about Raqs Media Collective in the October issue of ArtForum.


When I was part of the decision to begin U.turn Art Space, I probably hadn't counted on the opportunities to reconsider myself, the plural positions all of us are prone to occupy in the art world, and the radicality of an effort like an alternative gallery. Undoubtedly, working in the gallery for the couple of months it has existed and as i continue to combine my efforts with others, there will be conceptual bleed between my studio practice and the gallery's practice. 'Betcha we note it on this and my personal blog as I attempt to keep up on both.


Of course, I haven't exactly traded my autonomy for a collective-self. My thoughts are sorted through extremes to try and locate some footing for me and my co-conspirators. We find ourselves on a continuum (everyone's here) that includes markers for the invidual and the group. Which is more whole unto itself?

In our first exhibition, Katie Labmeier and Annette Monnier have both kindly built in components to their included works that present the opportunity to gift funding to the gallery. Labmeier has also made a donation from the proceeds of her performance art/raffle to the SPCA in the name of the gallery. For this, we are surprised and thankful. Other artists offer their works for sale or barter at the buyer’s discretion. As an outpost for the network of distinctly alternative (read: noncommercial) galleries in the city, we take interest in the rethinking of commerce and market that can be read in this exhibition. Through different approaches, these artists have removed or resituated themselves in the equation that makes up the exhibition of an artwork. Also of note was our delight as curators to see a consistent emphasis of materials over manipulation in many of the artworks on display.

The artists' solutions for economics and technique speak to, in my mind, a humility on the rise. And it may be just the beginning. The specific characteristics of our venture seems to predispose it to discussions that I hope to see other entities (galleries, institutions, individuals) trying to offer vision, reflection and a mound of brain storming to. There have been movements and aesthetics that, for me, mirror some of the opposing passions that we have seen brought to light in America over 2009's ongoing, heated debate over health care. For whom are we responsible? To whom do we address the dialogues initiated in our exhibitions? What form should care take as we explore and coax our nuances of contemporary aesthetics?

I am not prepared, we are not prepared to be solutionists, although I believe the world needs more solution-oriented thinkers with selfless motivations. Rather, I offer that our first exhibition and the number of exhibitions that are in the works seek to thematize aspects of existence and experience (apologies if that remains too broad, I don't want to give too much away about our upcoming year quite yet). U.turn is an experiment, one that joins a lineage in Cincinnati, most immediately preceded by our sister gallery semantics that is just up the road in Brighton. But others have served to offer us ideas for how the collective and/or the alternative gallery space functions in relationship to the Cincinnati public. Most readily, Publico (the five year gallery space that lived in OTR) and Aisle (that continues to mount exhibitions on the third floor of 424 Findlay) spring to mind as lo-fi institutions to which we owe our gratitude.

I think there is lots of room for growth. I've only jotted the seeds of a few ideas here. I/we are really just saying that we are asking questions about who and what we are, in terms of the gallery. The conversations are luminous and insightful and we sincerely hope to pass those qualities of experience on to you, our supporters.

-matt.