|
A few snippets from some of the dinner salons that happened
along the road to stretcher. The salon is conceived as a casual,
hour-long dinner and selected topic discussion featuring 5 or 6
guests. Initially still images would be accompanied by sound files
or text with the long term plan for the salon to be webcast live
and available via archive.
|
The making of stretcher Stretcher began as a dinner salon of sorts,
In March 2000 at a brunch at Megan Wilson’s, Megan and Glen
Helfand were complaining about one of San Francisco’s favorite
topics, lack of venues for art dialogue. But, this time, someone,
or rather they decided to act instead of talk. They quickly recruited
a bunch of others including myself (Amy Berk) and Andy Cox also
signed on to begin the process, have many meetings at the Atlas
cafe, at my house, Glen’s office and finally settling into
David Lawrence’s studio as the stretcher nerve (and design)
center. [Oh, the design, so long in the making but so beautiful
and conceptually true to the ideas behind stretcher — allowing
dialogue and connections to emerge via the viewer/reader.]
Beginning with dissatisfaction, stretcher emerged to showcase what was happening here in San Francisco and to make connections with other arenas domestic and imported. We couldn’t find the excitement, the energy, so, in that grand tradition, we decided to build it, make it happen ourselves. Stretcher’s vision is to provide both local and global communities with a critical, informative survey of visual art and culture in the Bay Area. No new venture can start without a name. We played many rounds of the name game over e-mail and in person. Some of my favorites are glenhelfand.com (don’t know why but I love it). However Glen was more partial to Duchamp references with LhooQ and Fresh Window as well as Dustfarm, while Andy loved endofart.com for obvious reasons! And, no new venture can start without $$$ (at least discussing the possibility of money). Maybe we should incorporate, that’s the next question, says David at the stretcher salon at 67-29th Street. I think we need to come up with a prototype, a leveraging tool for I don’t know what, replies Glen.
We hashed and rehashed profit vs. non-profit models (thank you Susan Miller and Michael Sippey for your input) and we had a few pathetic grasps at funding. The key word being sustainability. We dreamed of patronage, oh patron where art thou? All patrons please contact development@stretcher.org for more information and worshipers! [And, let’s not forget that Art forum was founded in SF] We questioned who we are. (constantly) Who we want to be. Audience; point of view; look and feel?; logo: branding; identity; sustainibility; "business plan" models; partnering; temporary vs. permanent; time; time commitments; content management; authorship/ownership; demographics; high brow vs. guerrilla; self-supporting (vs. self-serving). Cast changes….Ella Delaney with her conceptual and editorial savvy joins the stretcher crew as Andy Cox pulls back to work on his own public insertions against the system. (Andy’s work with Together We Can Defeat Capitalism can be seen as the artists project in this first issue). Megan takes a leave of absence to work on personal projects, still contributing a few pieces for issue no. 1 and rejoining the crew for issue no. 2, as Cheryl Meeker joins up to add her business and ideological know-how. After much discussion, the theme "space" was selected for the first issue to encapsulate the climate of the time. Space meaning physical, emotional, psychological, celestial, lack of, artist evictions, simulated, virtual, alternative(s), media/mediated, public, private, junk… Space of reflection. A lot happened in SF while stretcher was gestating- Dot.com boom went bust; Artist evictions slowed (or have they); Changeover in the political scene, to the right nationally but to the left locally. Stretcher records this tumultuous time, galvanizing ideas, discussions, exhibitions, philosophies and lives into a thriving if disconnected and often outside of the mainstream scene. Is this a viable thing to even bother with right now? asks Glen at the stretcher salon. Ella replies, The big machines will keep rolling right along. David adds, We should think about what our long-term goals are, it’s really hard for content based websites right now and it probably isn’t going to get easier.
Easy it certainly wasn’t. Putting challenging content together with limited (okay no resources) can be quite a feat. However, the work within this issue went beyond our expectations, exemplifiying why stretcher was created, to foment dialogue, creating a space for pointed critique, provocative ideas and evocative writings. Essays in this first issue include Sono Osato relating her harrowing experiences with her Oakland (formerly Jay Defeos) studio, Scott MacLeod leading us on a poetic and visual journey about disconnect of time, place and of course space, and Suely Rolnick dissecting the artist's role in the neo-capitalist gallery system using the public works of Brazilian artist Tunga as a vehicle. Projects include the stretcher crew visually depicting "all of the lofts in Soma" a la Ed Ruscha, Together We Can Defeat Capitalism’s video documenting it’s month-long guerrilla tea room, and the dialogue between incoming and outgoing (and now Whitney Biennial) director of the California College of Arts and Crafts Institue - Ralph Rugoff and Larry Rinder. Also in this first issue are reviews of exhibitions and events both local and international, including discussion about symposia in general as well as specific reference to the Deleuze conference at CCAC and the Worlds in Collision conference at SFAI and the 010101 exhibition at SFMOMA along with a calendar listing highlighting local exhibitions and events. Please let us know what you think, what you would like to see, what works, what doesn’t. Stretcher is a collaborative work in progress, an "experiment" in form. The medium itself becomes an art form conceived to be "finished" by the viewer/reader through parallel layers, open ended questions and emerging connections (all reflected in the amazing design by Tonita Abeyta). And, please look for musings, meditations and thought provoking essays, reviews and projects centering on the theme of "the new regime" in issue no. 2. (coming this fall?)
At the stretcher salon Ella interjects, Wait a minute, that is our second issue, intellectual property, trademark, public space, that kind of thing. Dave replies, It’s really a weird time right now. -Stretcher |
