艺术世界的十字街头: 白教堂美术馆“潜滋艺廊: 1960-80年代的三位艺品商”展览札记
[For Asymmetry Foundation]
向十字街头与人相逢，却在千峰顶上握手；向千峰顶上相逢，却在十字街头握手。—《五灯会元》
罗伯特·弗雷泽（Robert Fraser）、安妮·德·戴克（Anny de Decker）、琳达·古德·布莱恩特（Linda Goode Bryant）这三位富有远见的艺品商人生轨迹却动如参商。弗雷泽家世显贵，曾在伊顿求学，乌干达服役，在纽约花天酒地五年后，1962年在伦敦创办画廊。德·戴克与弗雷泽同龄，艺术史出身，1966年与丈夫在安特卫普合开宽白空间（Wide White Space）。德·戴克1969年访问纽约时，弗雷泽却因画廊经营不善，心灰意冷隐居印度。而此时，布莱恩特还是俄亥俄州未婚先孕的大二学生。毕业后，她孤身携子女迁至纽约，1974年借钱开启了JAM（Just Above Midtown），此时德·塞克已厌倦画廊，两年后关闭了宽白空间。1986年JAM停业，同年，回光返照的弗雷泽画廊也因弗雷泽病逝而彻底沉寂。
三人背景迥异，却都致力于推动机构和市场尚未接受的艺术形式，让画廊超越商业意义，成为各抒己见、创造实验的空间。怀抱这样的理想，弗雷泽从纽约返回伦敦，德·戴克辞去了研究16-17世纪荷兰艺术的工作，当大卫·哈蒙斯（David Hammons）说“我不在白人画廊做展览”时，布莱恩特决意成立JAM。艺术家“修成正果”的故事，往往始于艺品商的发掘赏识，接连几场叫好又叫座的展览后，最终进入机构收藏。尽管这三家画廊成就了许多如今大名鼎鼎的艺术家，但过程交织的论战、抉择与风险，并非寻常的艺术家与画廊关系可比。
德·戴克从不以专业人士自居，对她而言，宽白空间的十年是一场冒险而非生意。她与丈夫出于私交将一众杜塞尔多夫艺术家带到安特卫普，通过展览项目引荐给欧洲各地的藏家。宽白空间是年轻艺术家的聚集地与试炼场。德·戴克称，她当年挑选作品的方式，是将新作品挂在沃霍尔、波尔克、方塔纳和博伊斯作品中间，看其是否旗鼓相当。这一检验标准正如宽白空间所处时代，波普艺术、现实主义、空间主义、观念艺术潮流此起彼伏。
在伦敦，弗雷泽画廊是波普艺术与流行文化的游乐场。他是甲壳虫乐队《佩珀中士的孤独之心俱乐部乐队》专辑封面的艺术指导，健力士继承人塔拉·布朗（Tara Browne）曾驾驶一辆AC眼镜蛇汽车开出画廊的窗户。作为画廊主的弗雷泽亦独具慧眼。英国艺术家布莱恩·克拉克（Brian Clarke）回忆，当吉尔伯特与乔治的展览计划四处碰壁时，只有弗雷泽谨慎地说了一句“好吧…”。弗雷泽晚年重开画廊时，也别出心裁地展出了巴斯奎亚与凯斯·哈林的作品。弗雷泽与各路摇滚明星的故事为人津津乐道，他伦敦公寓内宾客常年络绎不绝。而盛名之下，弗雷泽画廊账目混乱，管理无序，其本人也饱受烟酒药物困扰。
人们往往被弗雷泽多面的传奇吸引，而忽略其对英国当代艺术展览的长远影响。战后世界艺术中心从巴黎转向纽约，弗雷泽反其道而行，将美国与欧洲艺术引向英国。弗雷泽画廊由盛转衰时，他的同龄人德·戴克已敏锐地发现，越战期间全球对美国的不满，一定程度上引发了波普艺术热潮的褪却。宽白空间迅速进行了语汇的转向，开始探讨权力、控制与不满情绪，而弗雷泽似乎并未意识到环境的变迁。现存的展场照片中，弗雷泽画廊展陈的风格也堪称古典。如果说宽白空间积极介入了作品与行为表演，弗雷泽画廊更像是人物露面的固定场地。弗雷泽画廊的先锋性发源于保守，有趣的是，弗雷泽的母亲辛西亚是毕加索、马蒂斯等现代艺术的藏家，许多藏品交易都是通过弗雷泽画廊完成。
与奉行国际主义的弗雷泽画廊、宽白空间不同，JAM以机构规模的展览与出版项目，专注于黑人艺术与文化，其活动场地也从画廊延伸至城市空间。在布莱恩特看来，JAM的踊跃鼎沸本身就是一件艺术品。1982年起，JAM以“从星期六晚间爵士舞到星期天晨间礼拜“为题，策划了一系列展览、表演、音乐、口述史、出版项目，以及众多关于黑人文学、舞蹈、幽默、游戏、餐饮、时尚活动，参与艺术家包括大卫·哈蒙斯、森加·努迪（Senga Nengudi）、洛林·奥格雷迪（Lorraine O’Grady）等等。很遗憾，这一代表着JAM雄心壮志的计划并未能实现，成为了少数族裔艺术至今未竟的事业。需要强调的是，尽管JAM也聚集了NBA球星等流行，但并非是与弗雷泽画廊殊途同归，JAM继承哈林文艺复兴、黑人艺术运动的衣钵，旨在提高黑人文化的辨识度，而非流行文化本身。
白教堂美术馆正在展出的“潜滋艺廊：1960-80年代的三位艺品商”展览包涵丰富的文献材料。三所画廊富于创意的策展方式和“非专业性”造就了各自独特的风格与实践，即使在画廊关闭后仍对当地与国际艺术群体有着深远的影响。在当代艺术的多重宇宙中，他们各谋其是，但也在时空中彼此守望。
Crossroads of Art Worlds: Notes on “Galleries in the Groove – Three Visionary Dealers, 1960s–80s”
If meet someone on crossroads, shake his hands on mountain peak; if meet someone on mountain peak, shake his hands on crossroads. (Wu Deng Hui Yuan)
Imagine three innovative, visionary, however radical gallerists in one room, Linda Goode Bryant, Anny de Decker, and the late Robert Fraser, how would they break the ice? Although Robert Fraser would be of the same age as Anny de Decker, their life trajectories never crossed. Robert Fraser, the youngest son of an affluent London family, who studied in Eton and served in King’s African Rifles in Uganda, opened his gallery in London in 1962 after five thriftless years in New York as an art enthusiast and collector. Anny de Decker majored in art history in Catholic University of Leuven, she opened Wide White Space in Antwerp with her husband—artist Bernd Lohaus in 1966. In the same year, a Jim Dine exhibition in Robert Fraser Gallery was considered to be an outrageous violation to Vagrancy Art 1838 and was forced to close, several months later the police arrested Fraser during a drug raid. As de Decker visited New York City and met with Christo in 1969, Robert Fraser closed his gallery, which was bogged in mismanagement and debts, before he secluded in India.
Meanwhile in Unites States, Linda Goode Bryant was only a college student and a young mother in Ohio. She moved to New York City in 1972 for master program in City College. After an internship in Metropolitan Museum, six months as a Rockefeller Fellow and a brief period working in the Studio Museum of Harlem, Bryant borrowed $1000 and opened Just Above Midtown (JAM) in 1974. However at this point, de Decker was already fed up with the repetitive exhibitions of same artists and works, Wide White Space lasted two more years and closed in 1976. Coincidentally, the final years of JAM overlapped with the brief resurrection, or terminal lucidity of Robert Fraser Gallery from 1983 to 1985. JAM closed in 1986, same year when Robert Fraser died of AIDS.
Despite the different racial, cultural and even aesthetic background of the three gallerists, they share the same interest for unconventional art forms that are not yet acceptable for concurrent museums or even the art market. At the same time, they realized the potential with art gallery beyond commercial gains. A gallery can be a place of inclusiveness, of debate, of innovation, of education, of support to the artists and in general, a place to have their own voice. With the passion to make a difference in the art world, Robert Fraser moved back to London from New York, Anny de Decker left her job as a researcher of 16-17th century Flemish art, and when David Hammons told Linda Goode Bryant “I don’t show in white galleries”, she decided to start JAM.
So many artists stories we’ve learned start with the artist’s work being appreciated by an art dealer, followed by several successful, well-sold exhibitions, recognition of a larger audience and ultimately, institutional acquisition. But this classical mode to ‘make an artist’ does apply to the three galleries being discussed here. Nevertheless they all played important role promoting many artists who later became widely recognized and commercially successful, but the establishment also came from chaotic arguments, hard decisions and some experimental, risk-taking spirit, much more complicated than a straightforward artist-gallery relationship.
Anny de Decker refuses to identify herself as a professional, for her, this is also the most important feature of Wide White Space. Consider her gallery more of an adventure rather than a business, de Decker and Lohaus staged numerous exhibitions during the ten years of Wide White Space. Many artists were introduced to the Antwerp art scene through de Decker and Lohaus’s personal connections in Düsseldorf, but the activities and events also attracted collectors from international backgrounds. The gallery as a meeting point and trail ground certainly offered a new possibility for emerging artists to experiment with their ideas. But de Decker also had a particular way to select the artists, as she recalls they would put the young artist’s works against Warhol, Polke, Fontana and Beuys to see if the new piece ‘fell off the wall’. This judging system manifests the Zeitgeist of White Wide Space in the Euro-American context, a time when Pop Art, Capitalist Realism, Spatialism and Conceptual Art arose and subsided as the taste and fashion of art rotating and mutating frequently.
In London, Robert Fraser Gallery was known for being the playground of Pop Art and Pop culture in the UK. Artists, pop stars and celebrities regularly assembled in the gallery and Fraser’s apartment. He famously art directed the album cover Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club for the Beatles, the Guinness heir Tara Browne drove an AC Cobra out of his gallery window, but as a gallerist and art dealer, Fraser also had acute eyes for emerging artists. According to the British artist Brian Clarke, when the exhibition proposal of Gilbert & George was rejected by every gallery, only Robert Fraser gave them a cautious “yeees”. Even in his final years the resurrected Robert Fraser Gallery still inventively showed artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. However, behind all the mirage and legends around the gallery, Robert was also constantly complained by artists and friends for late payment, missing of artworks, lack of attention and concentration largely due to his drug and alcohol consumption.
The multifaceted life of Robert Fraser is often too dazzling for people to notice the actual exhibitions in the gallery and his curatorial concepts, which not only shaped the ‘Swinging Sixties’ scene, but also left a profound influence on the contemporary art exhibition making and curating in the UK. As the center of art world shifted from Paris to New York in the post-war era, artists and art dealers flocked to the New World to take their chance. But Robert Fraser was flying backwards, introducing Avant-Garde artists and Pop Art from United States and Europe to London. While his legendary stories with Beatles, Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger is still phenomenal, his sumptuous, intoxicated life and careless style of management which led to the closure of the gallery also coincided with the fall of Pop Art. As a contemporaneity of Fraser, Anny de Decker acutely pointed out that the critical attitude towards United States increased during the course of the Vietnam War, which is accountable for the fast fade out of Pop Art in Europe. But de Decker managed to adapt and “started to use a different jargon. We talk about power, manipulation, hijacking and frustration.” The turn of vocabulary in Wide White Space led to several fruitful years in 1970s, but such adjustments and examination didn’t seem to occur to Fraser. From the surviving installation views of the Robert Fraser Gallery, the works are often arranged in a rather traditional fashion, even the Jim Dine exhibition which was closed by the police looks like a regular gallery show (although with explicit contents). While Wide White Space actively intervened and integrated with the artworks and performances, Robert Fraser Gallery was more of a fixed location for people and works to be presented. In a way, the very radicalness of the gallery lies within its own conservative nature. Interestingly, Fraser’s mother Cynthia was a collector of modern masters such as Picasso and Matisse, many transactions of her art collection were made through Robert Fraser Gallery as well.
Comparing to the internationalism in Wide White Space and Robert Fraser Gallery, JAM is a space exclusively dedicated to black artists and black culture. On the other hand, JAM acted beyond a commercial art gallery and produced exhibitions, programmes and publications on an institutional scale. Location of the events also expanded from the gallery space into the cityscape. According to Lorraine O’Grady, “JAM was a place as much as a world, a place where people ate together, discussed and argued, drank and smoked together, collaborated on work, slept together, pushed each other to go further, and partied ’til the cows came home.” For Bryant, interaction in the gallery is “one big stew”, where JAM became an art piece itself. Since 1982, JAM had been planning for a multidisciplinary exhibition titled “Afro-American Popular Culture: from the Saturday Night Stomp to the Sunday Morning Service”, the major project includes installations by artists such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi; performances by Adrian Piper, Lorraine O’Grady, Bill T. Jones, and Kaylynn Sullivan; a series of oral history interviews with artists and Bryant’s family; a three-day music event in venues across New York City; a survey of black popular dance since the 1920s; a publication with essays and artworks, as well as numerous events on black humor, games, popular literature, graphic arts, beauty, cuisine, social clubs, entertainment and fashion. Unfortunately this magnificent project, which could have altered the whole art world, was never realized. We can only imagine the dazzling panorama through remaining documentations and files from the gallery archive. However this might be one of the most important references to understand JAM, as we’re already familiar with the importance of JAM with the famous exhibitions and stories, this unrealized project shows us the ideal and ambition of JAM, something we can still work towards to. Although it might be obvious, it’s worth to note that while JAM also attracted celebrities such as basketball stars and pop stars, the dynamic in JAM was distinct from the scene in Robert Fraser Gallery. With the legacy of Harlem Renaissance, the Black Art Movement, and art collectives such as AfriCOBRA, what JAM was trying to promote was not about pop culture but the visibility and recognition of black culture, an endeavour which has been continued till today but further problematized within globalisation and localisation contexts.
The current exhibition in Whitechapel Gallery, Galleries in the Groove – Three Visionary Dealers, 1960s–80s, examines the three galleries with remarkable archival materials. The innovative way of exhibition making and art dealing, the un-professionalism of the three galleries moulded their unique style and practice, which in return deeply impacted on the local and international artistic communities even after the galleries were closed. In the multiverse of contemporary art, they each occupied one universe of their own, while gazing on each other over time and space.
