project for Public Art Fund, NYC (not realized) 2000
In 2000, on the invitation of the Public Art Fund in New York City, we formulated GOOD. We proposed transforming a site with a house and garage on Jackson Avenue, Queens, into a temporary open meeting place and freely accessible workspace for artists. Situated opposite the major art institution PS1 (which was itself once a ‘free space’), acts as a mirror for this institution. The site was situated on a piece of wasteland, used as a dumping ground for refuse from road construction, cables and drainpipes. Always interested in redundant spaces and niches, the site attracted our attention when we arrived at P.S. 1 for a residency in September 1999. A non-place begging to be deciphered and reconstructed. GOOD involves reimagining new, open spaces. The creation of such spaces or sanctuaries has been one the most powerful ventures undertaken by artists since 1945; initiatives that have given artists the tools and confidence to work outside the traditional art world and chart their own course.The concept of alternative spaces does not relate solely to architecture, but also a mindset or ideology as an alternative to on the one hand, the market-driven gallery system and, on the other, the inflexibility of museum spaces. Understanding as a premise that permanent versatility, temporariness and movement are indispensable components of free space. The ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of spaces where art can take place are called into question. In this way, free space can be transformed into a working strategy. Once the essential facilities are restored, GOOD would function as an open space where people can work, discuss and give presentations, using the existing architectural space to breathe new life into memories and shared history in the present. The house, intended to be open 24 hours a day, challenges concepts such as property rights, openness, responsibility, trust and even vandalism by making the space literally, consciously and deliberately vulnerable and keeping it accessible to everyone.
location
Information and accumulated knowledge about urban developments and the idealised New York art scene of the 1960s and 1970s connects to this recent past, and allows space to question, investigate, invent and function, anew and in the present, as a laboratory to take new ideas about the future into practice. The name GOOD is derived from FOOD, the name of the restaurant opened in 1971 by Gordon Matta-Clark, Caroline Goodden, Tina Girourd, Suzanne Harris and Rachel Lew at 127 Spring Street, New York. To show and document their work and support to themselves and others, they organized a cooperative community network, which led to FOOD becoming the meeting place and centre of discussion at the time, in the heart of SOHO. The group was also responsible for the founding of the magazine Avalanche, and they started the performance and exhibition space 112 Greene Street (later White Columns developed from this) and the think-tank Anarchitecture Group.The location of the house diagonally opposite P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is meaningful. P.S.1 (today affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art) has developed directly from the history and practices of alternative spaces. In the 1970s, the strategy of the Institute for Art & Urban Resources that Gordon Matta-Clark and Tina Girourd were closely involved with, occupied empty spaces in the city, making a major contribution in that period to a highly active and inspiring artistic climate. GOOD questions if such a climate is still possible today. Asking the question may already be the start of stimulating the emergence of such a climate.
