[1] 
[2] 
[3] [1]
[2] [3]
(1) Doug Edge, "Fantasy Photo:, photograph, 1971.
(2) Connie Zehr, "Portrait of Famela", installation shot, poured
sand and earth, 1971.
(3) Randye Sandel, "Ivy", o/c, 1971.
During a period that was something of a plateau for Los Angeles art
in terms of bringing its own home-grown art into the mainstream, amidst
the most noteworthy of those, Light and Space, there emerged a phenomenon
named for its address: 72 Market Street. Now this was at a time, dunng the
1960's, before the idea of a restaurant located there was even a gleam in
anyone's eye. The Market Street Program offered, during its brief existence
from 1971-73, an endeavor that was of wide interest not only in California,
in the Bay Area as well as here in L.A., but observed with interest around
the country and beyond.
Based at what was then the studio of artist Robert Irwin, it vigorously
championed the premise that artists are more competent to make curatorial
selections than other professionals in the field. Coming at a time when
the number of art galleries in the area had conspicuously dwindled, and
such nonprofit spaces like LAICA and LACE were yet to emerge, Market Street
offered exposure to artists deserving of visibility without the issues of
salespotential or curatorial bias functioning as a determining factor. Thus,
persons whose work might embody new directions, if still in embryo, could
be awarded the opportunity to show.
The principal consideration was historically based, in that, as the program's
initiator Josh Young has pointed out, the rise of modern art was related
to the social foundation of art. This was demonstrated even in the late
nineteenth century, as Young, who originated the program pointed out. The
French Impressionists, to point out a most prominent example, functioned
as a group presence and were mutually supportive of one another.
The Market Street Program actually had its conception when Young, as a painting
student at UC Irvine, became aware of ongoing studies on the social networks
of scientists. Indeed, the Irvine environment, he found, furnished the opportunity
to explore both fields, normally widely separated in academia, and ultimately
leading him to switch to sociology. As a painting major, however, it led
him to organize an exhibition--based on the hypothesis underlying what became
the Market Street Program--as a trial run. That effort included work by
the late Pat Hogan, now New York-based David Deutch, and others.
The projectcame into being afterWalter Hopps, then director of Washington's
Corcoran Gallery organized the institution's 1971 Biennial. He asked each
of the artists that he selected to choose another. Irwin, who had taught
at Irvine in the late '60s and was intrigued with the concept demonstrated
by the earlier show, selected Young. Irwin's piece in the show was a scrim;
Young's aproposal for new guidelines for curating.
Along with Irwin, who offered a space that was totally free of objects that
could interfere with work on exhibition, and consequently an ideal gallery
setting, assistance came from Hopps, psychologist Ed Wortz, and technical
experts including a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, another from
Columbia, a $15,000 NEA grant, and contributions from vanous donors. Thus
the project got underway in early 1971. It functioned for two years, with
exhibitions spreading to institutions in both Southern and Northern California:
LACMA, Long Beach Museum, Pasadena Museum, USC, Newport Harbor Museum, UC
San Diego, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oakland
Museum, UC Berkeley Museums, and Monterey Peninsula Museum all participated.
The Program was organized into three phases, as outlined in a report on
the history of the Program now held by the Archives of American Art.
Phase 1 encompassed the process of selecting artists to be exhibited. Here
interviews of artists were undertaken, the interviewees principally "opinion
leaders," i.e., persons who command respect from large segments of
their peer group. The choice was also intended to span "social stratas"
(a way of avoiding limitation to "established" figures?).
Questionnaires were sent to artists listed as "colleagues," their
responses resulting in new artists to be contacted. Reported in Artforum
by Peter Plagens, himself a participant in an exhibition, this was commendable.
"The idea, a radial model of the 'small world hypothesis' (everybody
knows somebody who knows somebody else, etc.) is ingratiating, flexible
and ongoing, with newcomers constantly being fed into the system."
Phase 2 consisted of the compiling of information collected using computers--at
that early stage the technology was actually engaged only for calculation
purposes--to show what responses reveal in terms of consistencies of preference
and frequencies of groupings. It also disclosed geographical commonalities,
Young noted, such as indications that artists in Pasadena were doing similar
work to those in Santa Monica.
Phase 3 determined the exhibition program. This was the process adopted
for bringing together persons for exhibitions, and described in Young's
report as "groups of artists displaying prominent positions in terms
of the results from phase 2." Here, terminology, was clanfied in terms
that could be arguable. "Prominent," for example, implied distinctive
rather than popular.
What was key to this exercise was the grouping of artists who made similar
choices as well as those who were frequently selected together in the over
600 responses received from artists who were sent questionnaires.
The opening show included work by Doug Edge, Terry O'Shea, and Joe Ray (Edge
is the only member among the group whose work continues to be viewed on
the local scene). However, this exhibition, dubbed The Fantasy Show,
did not offer art reflecting each artist's direction, but offered an
opportunity, as Edge recalls, to experiment with conceptual ideas in photography.
The show consisted of seven photographs featuring the artists themselves,
although in one example a fully dressed Ray appears with three nude women
a photo reminiscent of the famous Duchamp chess game made at the time of
his Pasadena Museum show.
That photo might well have outraged feminists, and justly so, but Plagens'
labeling of the second show as "a covey of militant women" in
his article was perhaps even more infuriating. Nevertheless, the show, which
consisted of work by Randye Sandel, Susan Titelman (now Cooder), Randall
Welles, Wanda Westcoast and Connie Zehr, could be considered a landmark
event, considering that the women's movement was then just getting underway.
(For the record, of the fifteen group shows undertaken there were two other
all-woman shows, and one four-to-one male; one other group show included
a single woman.)
The press showed considerable interest in the Market Street Program. Newsweek
recommended, "Artists are always guiding curators to other artists.
It is time they be given a formal hand in museum exhibition policy."
L..A. Times critic Henry Seldis declared, ". . .the scope and
method of the Market Street Program is unprecedented. . .It seems anyone
wishing to expand his experience with what art is being made around here
today has an obligation to himself to visit 72 Market Street (the gallery)
or other exhibition areas used by the Market Street Program."
If not every artist shown is a household name today--by and large they were
then in early career--most are still exhibiting. Some, like Chris Burden--he
did his famous Bed piece--and William Wegman--here (with his pesky
hound Man Ray, as many will recall) only briefly--are known world-wide.
Michael Asher and Allan Ruppersberg both had solos, because according to
Young, everybody wanted to show with them.
Young served as initiator and organizer, admintstrator, secretary, fundraiser,
archivist, and just about everything else required over his tenure. So no
wonder that the program ended when he departed to return to other activities
! Hopefully, though, this sketch might reawaken the memory of some who have
forgotten the particulars of events; they do recall that it was a formidable
enterprise, so that a retrospective analysis (maybe even a retrospective
show) can be.undertaken. We always profit from learning more about ourselves.
The story of the Market Street Program might just tell us things we need
to know.
