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Martin Beck, Alternative: space”, in Julie Ault (Hg.), Alternative
Art NYC: 1955-1985 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2002).
pg. 247-279, Alternative: Space
Martin Beck
(On the second to last day of the 1960s, the Museum of Modern Are in New York
published a catalog featuring an image of “outer space” on its cover. A blue-tinted,
slightly abstract photograph shows an accumulation of differently sized stars and
galactic dust. A transparent plastic wrapper overlays che image and bears the tidle
of the exhibition this catalog accompanied, Spaces. The show consisted of sx spe-
cially developed installations by Michael Asher, Larry Bell, Dan Flavin, Robert
‘Mortis, the arise group Pulsa, and Franz Erhard Walthes, In the catalog’s acknowl-
edgments curator Jennifer Licht wrote that “An exhibition in which the installa-
sion becomes the actual realization of the work of art and rooms must be planned
and built according to the artist’ needs, challenges the ustal role of the Museum
and makes unaccustomed demands ofits stafF and resources"!
Seldom before had the museum staged an exhibition the outcome of which
was unclear until a few days before its opening. Licht lacer described Spacer as
being the result of political pressure placed on the museum by artists who, among
ther things, advocated exposure to nontraditional practices.? The institutional
challenge was also manifest in the exhibition catalog, which, because of time con-
saints, contains no depicrions of any of che installations; instead, the publication
presents the proposals, photographs of previous work by the artists at other loca-
tions, and phorographic documentation of the installation process. Interestingly,
the intriguing cover image has no direct relationship to the works in the exhibition
or to information provided in the catalog. The only (indirect) reference to itis 50
Martin Beck
made toward the end of Licht introduction, which concludes by noting, "In this
“Space Age,’ space is no longer an abstraction.”"*
Space” had become a buzzword during the 1960s and capcured the collective
imagination in a powerful way. Formerly a word primarily associated with archi-
tecture and geography, “space” began to be used in che context of various fields,
Juding social theory, culture, politics, media, and technology. Throughout the
decade, NASA's Apollo program had fueled the increasingly popular obsession wich
images and facts about the Moon and beyond, culminating in the moment when
the astronaut Neil Armstrong tool his firs step on the lunar surface in July 1969.
‘Television and film disseminated images of space—real and imagined—and
further embedded them inco hugely popular fictional narratives. Each episode of
Gene Roddenberry's NBC television series Star Tieb, which debuted in 1966, is in-
troduced with the phrase “Space: che final frontier." Stanley Kubrick's 2968 film
2001: A Space Odyssey inked the idea of exploring new spaces to the ancient devel-
opment of tools. One of the film's key iconic scenes cuts from a bone fying up
inco a blue sky to a spaceship in orbit; the bone has been thrown in the air by an
ape who had grasped its usefulness as 2 weapon. Ironically, che odyssey through
space is then launched by an encounter with a perfect geometric slab that might
as well be a minimalist sculpture.
Throughout che 1960s, artists, architects, and social theorists reconceptualized,
over ot paces catog 1969 (needs wansparent overage nord SPACES prt on).
