Lucy Gellman Photo
Three or four years ago a thought struck Helen Kauder, executive director at Artspace New Haven: What if the organization, heading toward its 30th year, really was in it for the long haul? What did that mean for her, for the staff, and for the community?
“In this entire time I think we’ve thought of ourselves — and we’ve been seen in the community — as a kind of upstart,” Kauder (pictured) said in an interview. “It’s been only recently that the Community Foundation [for Great New Haven] has started calling us an anchor in the community. If we’ve survived for 30 years, we should think of ourselves as being around for long term. I think that’s a shift for us.”
Thanks to two federal and foundation grants totaling $75,000, the organization will have the resources to “reconceive, reinterpret, and re-imagine touchstone projects over Artspace’s 30 years of programming.” The reinventive aspect is covered by a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. A second, $50,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven will allow the organization to launch its Three Decades of Change campaign, which “seeks to position Artspace and the artist community for excellence and sustainability for the long term,” according to a press release. It also gives the organization a chance to reconnect with some 6,000 artists with whom it has collaborated over 30 years.
Like artists in “Factory Direct,” which opened at Artspace in January 2005. Inspired by a show at the Art Center for the Capital Region in New York, curator Denish Markonish wanted to explore the intersection — and sometimes straight-on collision — of visual art and blue-collar industry. With a grant, 12 artists were given stipends to work directly with factories in and around New Haven, entering into conversations that influenced laborers and artists alike. Artist Richard Klein paired up with Marlin Firearms. Michael Oatman collaborated with Tower Optical Co. The now-edgy and beloved Chakaia Booker worked alongside professionals at Vespoli. Others had placements at C. Cowles & Co., Sargen Manufacturing Co., and Pinchbeck Roses.
“Then we had a major recession,” said Kauder. The economy crashed. Several of those factories folded. “The workspace as we know it has changed. Artists are now cobblers … cobbling together a living in this new much more unstructured, much more freelance world.”
“Year in and year out over this long period of time, Artspace has been taking risks, addressing issues of the day, and having a pulse on what artists’ yearnings are,” Kauder said. “We have sustained our commitment to being responsive when something happens. [These grants are a chance] to think about our 30 years in a more holistic way.”
Courtesy Artspace
Comissioned artist Alison Hornak at CWOS 2014.
That means that New Haveners can look forward to a year of exhibitions that continue to challenge and delight in ways that no other institution in New Haven is doing. That has already started with its current show, “Hello World,” which opened earlier this month and presents an inherent queering of the organization’s 2004 show, ““Boys’ Life.” Other visual treats and challenges will include re-explorations of 2003’s “Between Fear and Freedom,” which responded to John Ashcroft’s hair-raising advice to keep duct tape, plastic sheet covering, batteries, water and flashlight on hand in case of a terrorist attack, and, of course, a sort of rebirth of “Factory Direct” that will, Kauder said, “take a much more critical look at wages at the way we live,” in the year 2015.
The grants, Kauder added, don’t just carry the organization smoothy into 2016. With a new focus on building an endowment, this is “our next chapter.”
