Chaos and madness in the east village
Entitled "Does New York Exist", the Axis Project undertook a collaborative investigation of centre/periphery relations between Brisbane and New York. Jay Younger, Paul Andrew, and Lehan Ramsay embarked on this mission in1988. The project was funded by the Visual Arts/Crafts Board of the Australia Council.
Nicholas Zurbrugg: What is Axis?
Jay Younger: Well, Axis began out of our artist-run space activity, really. THAT, The Observatory, and the Queensland Artworkers Alliance were all artists' initiatives, and that's where the AXIS project came from. lt's just to explore the notion of what artist-run spaces are.
Paul Andrew: All of the approaches we've been involved in evolved out of New York in the early '70s. Alternative art spaces were developed there and they're very much our origins, if you like. And it seemed important to look at those and see how they had changed, and what sort of structures were there now.
NZ: What did you know about the New York artist-run spaces – how did you find out about them?
PA: Well one of the things that started us off having a real connection with New York was the Outside Art Show at THAT Space in '86. lt was an exhibition of graffiti art, a trace of an opening they had at a New York gallery called No Se No (The show was co-curated by Malcolm Enright with Toyo Tsuchiya, the Director of No Se No). No Se No was one of the key Lower East Side galleries. Interestingly, when we got there, the place was just decayed... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline