About

Impractical Spaces: Houston places our city’s art community in the context of a nationally-distributed series of books (and eventual anthology) examining the significance of historic alternative art spaces in cities outside the glare of New York and Los Angeles. Through a collection of interviews, photographs and ephemera, and descriptive entries, the history of Houston’s alternative art scene is documented, preserved, celebrated, and shared.

Impractical Spaces is a groundbreaking anthology of publications that offer a historical look at both active and defunct artist-run projects throughout the United States in small to mid-sized cities. This project will engage at least fifty cities in fifty states with the intent of assembling all publications for distribution in the form of a book charting the national significance of the artist-run scene.

​The project shifts the discussion of artist-run projects from a coastal and exclusively urban conversation to the larger network of artistic efforts driving this scene. Mid-sized cities have become a refuge for dealers and artists in larger metropolises now too expensive to support middle tier and emerging commercial galleries, let alone artists. In a time when we need to be looking for new alternatives, spaces for experimentation are desperately needed.

While there is nothing mid-sized about Houston, its rich and unruly history of artist-run spaces and its “no-zoning” ethos make it the ideal city to represent the state of Texas in this conversation. Long-established alternative art spaces like Lawndale, DiverseWorks, and Project Row Houses already benefit from national attention. This project would consolidate their histories alongside those of such lesser-known spaces as Adept New American Folk Center (c.1970-1980); the Houston Museum of Modern Art (1974-1976); Chicano Arts Gallery (1976-1978); Studio One (1979-1983); Little Egypt Enterprises (1979-1983); Firehouse Gallery (1982-1986); Commerce Street Artists Warehouse (1985-2010); Zocalo/Templo (1989-2001); The Axiom (1987-1991); Tha Joanna (2007-2013); and Skydive (2008-2011), to name just a few. Special attention will be paid to spaces that have supported the work of underserved communities in a city that in the years since has been transformed almost beyond recognition by gentrification.

The point of the project is to connect multiple generations of creative individuals in Houston through a shared history and to preserve information about these often-liminal spaces before it is lost forever.

Additional Information

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