Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Artist-Run Spaces So Different, So Appealing?

PANEL DISCUSSION WITH CURRENT AND PREVIOUS CUBITT CURATORS:

MATTHEW HIGGS, STEFAN KALMAR, POLLY STAPLE, EMILY PETHICK, DAVID BUSSEL, TOM MORTON, BART VAN DER HEIDE

SATURDAY, 13th OCTOBER 2007, 3PM

Through personal experience with Cubitt the panel will address the past, present and future role of Cubitt in the changing climate of the London art scene.

Established in 1990 as artist-run studios and gallery in Kings Cross, Cubitt has played an important role as a site for exhibiting progressive international art projects for the last 17 years. Cubitt has re-located four times, realised over 90 exhibitions and projects and supported dozens of curators and artists.

Cubitt’s first exhibitions were organised by the studio artists whose ambition was to show work by their peers amid a conservative London gallery scene. As artists took on the role of the curator, the gallery established itself early on as an alternative to the institutional system and a place where dominant curatorial practices were challenged. In the mid-nineties Cubitt began to invite outside curators to organise exhibitions. This led to fixed-term funding by London Arts (now: Arts Council England), which was granted in January 2001 and helped to set up an 18-month curatorial bursary. Since then this bursary has supported five emerging curators. The realisation of the exhibitions and events is made possible by the studio holders’ commitment to the idea that an artist-run space such as Cubitt is still important 17 years after its founding.

The archive weekend focuses on the period of 1993 – 2007, presenting visual documentation of the gallery programme and Cubitt’s various locations as well as invitations, press releases, posters and publications of past projects. It also includes audio recordings of talks and debates.

Many thanks to Olivier Castel, Cubitt’s archive researcher.

Cubitt Archive Weekend is supported by Arts Council England.