Hubbry Logo
search
logo

New Langton Arts

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
New Langton Arts

New Langton Arts (active 1975 – 2009) was a not-for-profit arts organization focusing on contemporary art founded in 1975 and located the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Part of the first wave of alternative art spaces in the United States, and New Langton Arts was a leader in exhibiting new media forms in art and involving artists in the decision-making process. Its first directors were Judy Moran and Renny Pritikin.

New Langton Arts focused on collaborating with artists on the "production and presentation of new work, exhibitions and events, that challenged the boundaries of conventional art practice while encouraging broad public appreciation and access to the art of our times."

In 1975 San Francisco's art scene reached a turning point. A substantial enough number of younger artists working in the new mediums of performance, installation, video, and interdisciplinary projects was reached, and they identified themselves as a community. Local commercial galleries and museums were not showing these art forms, and artists and their supporters were organizing various opportunities for each other on an ad hoc basis. For example, a series of performance events were held in 1974 in a vacant industrial space on Bluxome Street. When artist Jock Reynolds purchased and renovated a former coffin factory at 80 Langton Street, he made the ground floor available for a new organization to support new work. Moving out to next-door at 1246 Folsom Street later.

Its first directors were Judy Moran and Renny Pritikin, who were central figures in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene for 30 years. Subsequent directors of New Langton Arts include Nancy Gonchar, Christiane Robbins, Susan Miller, and Sandra Percival.

Inspired by models in New York and elsewhere (Artists Space, Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art) that were committed to artist control, artist financial support, and support of artists by other artists, the not for profit 80 Langton Street Corporation was created in 1975 and opened its doors in July 1975 with a one-person video installation by artist Peter D'Agostino. Signers of the corporate documents included Judith Dunham, then editor of Artweek, David Robinson, architect, and gallerists Ruth Braunstein and Diana Fuller. A board of directors made up of artists and arts professionals took control.

New Langton Arts emerged into a local ecology that already or soon would contain peers such as Site/Cite/Sight (run by artist Alan Scarritt), La Mamelle, Inc./Art Com (run by Carl E. Loeffler), Galeria de la Raza (run by René Yañez and Ralph Maradiaga), San Francisco Camerawork, Southern Exposure, Tom Marioni’s Museum of Conceptual Art among others. All these organizations shared some of the ideals mentioned above. These emerging arts organizations were an extension into the fine arts realm of alternative organizations of the era that sought to insert themselves between producers and consumers in ways that bypassed traditional distribution methods, whether in education, food, or information distribution. Furthermore, these New Left ideals extended to giving artists power over their fate using a participatory democracy model.

Langton's history is closely tied to the emergence of new art forms in the ’70s—performance and time-based art, video and installation, improvised and electronic music, and experimental writing: Barbara Kruger in the literature program (1977); residencies by Allan Kaprow and Martha Rosler (1980); Charles Ray’s performance installation (1985); and Olafur Eliasson’s first show in the US (1996). At the time these artists were under 35, at emergent moments in their careers, and had never before been seen in the Bay Area.

In solo, group installations and performances, Langton has produced and presented the work of Nam June Paik, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Nancy Rubins, Suzanne Lacy, Steve Benson, Tony Oursler, Allen Ruppersberg, Clark Coolidge, Tom Marioni, Chip Lord, Ted Berrigan, Paul DeMarinis, Howard Fried, John Baldessari, Kathy Acker, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Eleanor Antin, Joan Jonas, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Lorenzo Thomas, Lynne Tillman, Barrett Watten, Bill Berkson, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Félix González-Torres, Maria Nordman, Alvin Curran, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Ron Silliman, John Zorn, Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Paul McCarthy, Joe Reihsen, Matthieu Laurette, Aaron Young, Sonya Rapoport, Harrell Fletcher, Rigo 23, Felipe Dulzaides, Marc Horowitz, mafishco, Liz Young, and others.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.