Artists Space

[1] Artists Space has historically been engaged in critical dialogues surrounding institutional critique, racism, the AIDS crisis,[2] and Occupy Wall Street.

[1] In 1974, Edit DeAk organized PersonA, a photo and video performance series focusing on autobiography and institutional critique of the art world.

In 1977, Douglas Crimp curated Pictures, an exhibition featuring the work of Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine and Robert Longo.

"[10]In 1978, Artists Space served as a site of inception for the No Wave movement, hosting a five night underground no wave music festival, organized by artists Michael Zwack and Robert Longo, that featured ten local bands; including Rhys Chatham's The Gynecologists, Communists, Glenn Branca's Theoretical Girls, Terminal, Rhys Chatham's Tone Death (performing his composition for electric guitars Guitar Trio)[11] and Daily Life.

[13] Impressed by what he saw and heard, and advised by Diego Cortez to do so, Eno was convinced that this movement should be documented and proposed the idea of a compilation album, No New York, with himself as a producer.

[15] Linda Goode Bryant of Just Above Midtown Gallery and her colleague Janet Henry mobilized[16] a coalition of artists and critics including Lucy Lippard, Carl Andre, May Stevens, Edit DeAk, Faith Ringgold, and Howardena Pindell, who acted as the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition[3] and published an open letter criticizing the exhibition.

[18] Another coalition of artists and critics including Roberta Smith, Laurie Anderson, Rosalind E. Krauss, Craig Owens, Douglas Crimp, and Stephen Koch published an open letter defending the exhibition and the choice of its title.

[19] Director Helene Winer argued that the context of the title was not racist in intention, and that art is "a territory where everything can be explored, discussed, revalued."

[23] For another work, Disengorgement, Rowland purchased 90 shares of Aetna, who previously issued slave insurance to slaveowners[23] in order to establish the "Reparations Purpose Trust."