Heterotopia Art Ephemera, Libraries, and Alternative Space
Heterotopia Art Ephemera, Libraries, and Alternative Space
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[This article is based on a poster session presented at theARLIS/ i.e., communicate the intentions of the participants or document
NA Annual Conference inHouston, March 2005] events. The collection with which I have worked is comprised of
art ephemera from events taking place in London over ten years,
Art Ephemeraand AlternativeSpace from 1995-2005. I have organized this collection physically in
This article isdrawn from research inwhich I investigated the chronological order, reflectinghow ephemera arrive in the library
as a day-by-day accumulation of items. Ihave indexed artists and
potential of a collection of art ephemera in a library to represent
art which are otherwise docu all other named participants and gallery names for 1999-2001.
contemporary practices rarely
mented. Art ephemera are particularly likely to record transient Of necessity, ephemera in the library are usually considered in
and informal organizations and associated contingent strategies their plurality, kept in files. Such files are usually "artist files"
from the unstable and fugitive terrain of "alternative" art activi and "gallery files" or "institutional files"which cluster the infor
ties,which have been a vital part of contemporary practice. Their mation under certain criteria, hiding other access routes and
qualities,
as art
ephemera, give them a value as a source of poten rearranging the ephemera's provenance. My hybrid of archival
tial histories which might otherwise remain obscure. I am most and library rationales is intended to increase the possibilities for
concerned in this project with art practices which are not object access to this artificial archive. Such ephemeral and short-lived
based, which are tactical and contextual, and inwhich the idea entitiesmay not have archives in the conventional sense.
of alternative space remains operative. All ofmy examples took JulieAult makes a strong case forephemera as a resource. She
place in London, England, in the late 1990s. I am aware thatboth says that "documentation of ephemeral meet
events?protests,
"alternative" and "alternative
space"
are contentious terms; I am ings, actions, installations, exhibitions, temporary art and items
from thepaper trails of short-lived groups?are least likely to be
using them tomake practices visible and because the role of artists
in validating art is both evident in ephemera, and is one of the found in library collections and rarely circulate after the event."4
diverse and contradictory aims on which this category touches. In setting up the collection, Iwas influenced by some exemplary
JulieAult's description and articulation of the issues relevant collections of art ephemera that do include such materials and
to the history of such diverse spaces and practices delineated in are relatively well known and accessible, such as the Political
the essay "For the Record," published in Alternative Art New Art Documentation and Distribution (PADD) archive now in
York,1 have been a central authority forme, although cultural the library atMoMA, New York, and theWomen's Art Library/
differences between New York and London have become evident MAKE collection atGoldsmiths College Library. One motivation
throughmy wider research. I decided to recognize the building for setting up The Women's Art Library/MAKE collection was to
of an art library collection as a representation of spaces,2 taking make a kind of alternative space, a public place inwhich todocu
the artist-run alternative as both material and theoretical ment women's art. As in these a
space examples, partisan engagement
space, and recognizing and exploiting the possibility that the can make a more cohesive collection. I am
personally interested
library is a heterotopia,3 a place that contains different and some in how the idea of alternative space continues to operate, and in
times contradictory understandings of the ideological spaces art that operates criticallywithin informational forms; the exam
thatwe inhabit. ples I have chosen reflect these interests. The following account
drifts from descriptions of particular places in London to repre
Art Ephemeraas Representations sentational space and informational space.
Art ephemera represent the artworld inoverwhelming detail
A ParticularDirectnessas a Resource
when considered as a criticalmass, although thispicture remains
partial. One way inwhich art ephemera do this is tomap where Art ephemera have many qualities thatmake them a valu
events took place. I have developed this cartographical effect able resource. They have a particular kind of directness, being
by including images of the sites and buildings where art events produced at the specific time by those involved. They may be
happened as part of the catalog database called Ephemeris. These used by the artist as an art form,as documentation, or toprovide
images form a visual record of art sites in London during this a context for the art. They may also be used to assert artists'
period (1995-2005). The photographs were often takenwhen the professional authority on art,what it is, its place, and its role.
building was closed, or became disused, or reused; they are in In the introduction to the Life/Liveexhibition catalog from 1996,
a sense empty and do not do what the
ephemera sometimes do, which contains themost complete survey to date of artist-run
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25,
Figure 2. Factual Nonsense, One Sheep Currency Note, 1999. Courtesy FN.
AlteringConventions
Art ephemera may have brief and conventional content,
or theymay be very condensed, elaborate sources of informa
tion. Contemporary art ephemera often use visual and textual
strategies which relate to the event and to social and political
intentions; they also allude to traditional styles of ephemera by
using citation, parody, or mimicry, as in the example from the
Agricultural Fair. In art ephemera, such strategies and tropes are
Figure 1.Nils Norman, of The Oval,
Proposed Redevelopment Hackney
E2. Poster/flyer.
Courtesyof theartist. used to document and question the interrelationship of the terms
of art and the terms of itsplace in theworld. The use of logos and
Transience
Documenting series to identify institutions and organizations is a convention
A widespread definition of ephemera is that they are the of publicity material. The existence of such conventions means
"minor transientdocuments of everyday life."7Art ephemera are that these conventions can be used, creatively and critically, to
the documents of the everyday activity ofmaking art public. Art comment on the event and the institution,and todescribe tactical
ephemera have a marginal yet dependent relationship to visual uses of such cultural forms.Although ephemera often exist in the
art. Their formats can be conventional; they are intended to act, form of logos and series because of a need to set out ideas or to
for example, like a program for an event, but parody, homage, communicate in a very time frame, the categoriza
contemporary
and pastiche are used to complicate, elucidate, or mix the tion of themanifestation of thematerial should not dominate our
messages. Text and images may accomplish this independently, understanding of itsmeaning. Ephemera are usually intended to
or theymay reflect or react upon each other. The visual element be useful for a short time, and it is thisusefulness that is literally
is as important as the textual, and the two cannot be understood
ephemeral, rather than the items themselves; these often become
separately, whether they are created by artists or not. souvenirs, or are intended as documentation.
Art ephemera are especially valuable in a library collection Because it ismade in advance of an occasion, an ephemeron
because they document events and structures which are also may be evidence that something existed. Anna Best's leaflet for
ephemeral?the kind of events happening daily which form a Occasional Sights: A London Guidebook ofMissed Opportunities
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We are off.10
Figure 6. Cubitt Gallery, Angel Yard, 2004, with sign for "Public
Library." Courtesy Ephemeris.
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it ismainly an investigation intohow an art librarycan support and tion-processing entitieswho are essentially similar to intelligent
machines. It's the information flows that count."
document research in contemporary visual art practice, inwhich I
tried tounderstand some of the issues of context and representation 12. Emma Dexter, "London 1990-2001: Picturing the
across both art and librarianship. I have been working as visual arts City," inCentury City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis
and special collections librarian at Goldsmiths College, University (London: Tate, 2001), 72-95.
of London, concurrentlywith conducting the research supporting 13.1 treat the subject of cataloging as re-contextualization
this article and have used thematerial collected to develop a only briefly and theoretically here. Inmy article "Calling in
theDark: IdentifyingOur Ephemera Files" (forthcoming,
working resource.19The resulting catalog Ephemeriswas developed
as a database using FileMaker Pro, with Dublin Core metadata. It Art Libraries Journal,Autumn 2006) I have reviewed practical
is arranged chronologically and indexed intensively.My intention models of cataloging ephemera in relation to this theme, and
was touse cataloging processes with a small collection as a research I am continuing to research in this area. My case is built on
tool to investigate thepotential of ephemera as a research resource, anecdotal evidence from colleagues in theU.K. and theVektor
rather than toproduce a systemwhich in turnmay be expanded for project, and from curatorial use of ephemera in exhibitions such
use with a larger collection, although this could be done. Ephemeris as Alternative Art New York, Extra Art, Interarchive, Bankside
is available in the Special Collections Department at Goldsmiths Browser, and Bring theWar Home.
14. Lioba Reddeker, ed., Archiving thePresent?Gegenwart
College and will soon be made available online.20
dokumentieren: Manual on Cataloguing Modern and Contemporary
Notes Art inArchives and Databases /Handbuch zur Erschlie?ung
moderner und zeitgen?ssischerKunst inArchiven und Datenbanken
1. JulieAult, "For theRecord," inAlternative Art New York
(Vienna: basis wien, to be published 2006); details fromhttp://
(Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 2000), 1-16. Julie's www.vektor.at.
to the term "alternative," etc., is that "these terms
opposition 15. See OCLC Research Activities and IFLA's Functional
inscribe and promote a hierarchical understanding of the art
Requirements forBibliographic Records, http: / /www.oclc.
field as a system." Her position is that "For the sake of visibility
org/ research/projects/frbr/.
and clarity, I find 'alternative' to be useful as a general term
16. The Communications Department exhibition took place
because itdeclares historical and critical relations between the at Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London, June 2001, and was
structures thus classified and the then existing institutions and was no
curated Alex There
by Farquharson. catalog.
practices." (pp. 3-4). I have adopted this view here. 17.Medea Group, remarks ofDick Burn, 2001.
2. Based upon Lefebvre's analysis of differentkinds of
18. Spencer, "We Know Too Much These Days."
representational spaces. See Henri Lefebvre, The Production of 19.1 am grateful toGoldsmiths College Visual Arts Depart
Space (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1991). ment, University of London, for supporting the project, both
3.Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces," inArchitecture
academically and with a small research grant.My forthcoming
Culture, 1943-1968, ed. J.Ockman (New York: Rizzoli, 1993). PhD dissertation will be called "Art Ephemera and Alternative
Foucault proposes the library specifically as a heterotopia of
Space inLondon 1995-2005" and is due to be completed in 2007.
time, rather than space. 20. See Goldsmiths College Library Special Collections
4. Ault, "For the Record," 1-16.
Web site at http: / /libweb.gold.ac.uk/speccoll.php.
5. Suzanne Page, preface to Life/Live,vol. 1 (Paris:Mus?es
de laVille de Paris, 1996), 8.
6.Nils Norman, Keith Cr anwell, and Paul Clay don, An
JacquelineCooke, Subject Librarianfor Visual Arts & Visual Cultures,
Architecture ofPlay: A Survey ofLondon sAdventure Playgrounds GoldsmithsCollege, University ofLondon (UK), [email protected]
(London: Four Corners Books, 2003).
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