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Allston beat
The Local Idea Council says goodbye, and NAO Gallery launches Experimental Atelier
BY RANDI HOPKINS
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Experimental spaces are a vital aspect of contemporary artmaking — they’re where it all starts, and they fuel that sense of pioneering that art lovers crave. So I’m sorry to report that we’re about to lose one of the liveliest and most tenacious spaces around. Since 1988, artist Andrew Guthrie has hosted a funky underground salon in unusual digs in the so-called Allston Mall at 107 Brighton Avenue, a salon he ran as "The 88 Room" from 1988 to 1998 and later as "The Local Idea Council." Guthrie’s second-floor space shared its big, opening-conducive lobby area with a raggedy band of local entrepreneurs over the years, including the punk-rock-minded Primal Plunge, one of the first bookstores in the city to deal in ’zines and subversive literature. On June 4, Guthrie hosts a one-night farewell exhibition and closing party that will feature his own compelling installation, photography, and video work, which has been shown at the Institute for Contemporary Art, at ONI Gallery, and in guerrilla-action books and pamphlets around town. He explores local history, personal history, personal vice, and the ephemera of daily life with deadpan wit and a fine eye for presentation. In the 88 Room’s decade of glory, Guthrie curated shows featuring more than 100 artists, almost all of them local, in exhibitions including "Free Flow of Information," which addressed censorship and the NEA debacle, and "Introversion," in which he crammed the work of 10 artists into a single small room. In 1999, Guthrie transformed the space into "The Local Idea Council" and devoted it to an extended project documenting the history of Allston, with one artwork by a single artist exhibited each month, the lucky winner selected by lottery rather than by the usual art-world criteria. Guthrie has run the space in keeping with his political beliefs and his conceptual tendencies; in his words, "The 88 Room was a scrappy endeavor in a cheap space started by artists who were interested in showing their work, but over time, it became involved in the social uses and politics of art." Who doesn’t love a scrappy endeavor? As one door closes . . . Karine Jouenne, intrepid director of the South End’s NAO Gallery, is kicking off her expansive new "Experimental Atelier" program, in which the gallery hosts music, film, writing, and performance work directed by emerging professionals. "The idea of running an Experimental Atelier program at NAO," she says, "was born out of frustration — personal frustration of not having a minute left to explore the world outside the fine-art circuit and frustration with the gentrification of Boston and the consequent loss of affordable space for emerging artists and non-profit art organizations." On May 28 at 7:30 p.m. (and again on June 25), Boston-based freelance writer and art reviewer D’lynne Plummer presents "Mongologues: Lost and Almost Found in Outer Mongolia" as part of the Experimental Atelier’s "Spoken Word" series, in which writers read original new material before live audiences. Word has it, Plummer is a dynamite and seriously funny storyteller. Andrew Guthrie’s installation and closing party are at the Local Idea Council, 107 Brighton Avenue (second floor) in Allston, on June 4 at 8 p.m.; call (617) 259-8630. "The Mongologues: Lost and Almost Found in Outer Mongolia," part of the Experimental Atelier’s "Spoken Word" series, is at NAO Gallery, 535 Albany Street in Boston, on May 28 at 7:30 p.m. (and again on June 25). The event is free, but donations are welcome; call (617) 451-4977.
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