2B Butler's Wharf by David Critchley from February 1977 'Readings' magazine, Editor - Annabel Nicholson (Read the text below)

Reproduced text:

2B Butler's Wharf opened in the spring of 1976 with a series of eight Saturday evening shows by the artists who had originally rented the space to use as studios.   There had been one live performance before this however, in November 1975, by Kevin Atherton who was seen by a good audience in spite of some complaints about the place being out of the way and difficult to find.   It was at this point that the potential of the place for showing live or other essentially durational art work became apparent, and the then rent-paying members decided to organise the eight showings of their own work.   At this time there was no plan to continue showings on a regular long-term basis, but the positive reaction of audiences and the interest shown by other artists who wanted to use the space persuaded the members of 2B to form a committee and organise the space on its present ongoing basis.

When we began to examine the situation with regard to the showing of live work in London we realised that no art gallery or art centre specialised in the showing of performance work.   Other galleries did show live work, but it was often in a space that was either devoted to, or actually contained a show of painting or sculpture in a traditional manner.   Live shows in this context seem to provide a fill-in or secondary activity to the main purpose of commercial galleries, which is ultimately that of selling work.   Performances do attract attention though and spin offs in the form of documentation or preliminary work can become saleable items.   However, the actual art work, the performance, remains unpackaged and essentially unsaleable unless the charging of an admission fee can be counted as selling the work.   The selection of live work to be shown in a gallery context must also be determined by principles that relate to painting and sculpture, such as the need to predetermine the work when in fact a 'final version' cannot exist until the piece has taken place, unlike the painting or sculpture which exists before it ever gets shown.   An assessment of past work can be made but this often relies heavily on documentation or on hearsay, as few people go to see the whole of an artist's output, so the prediction of a future work's success on this basis is of limited value.   Access to commercial gallery space is also limited by time factor.   Main shows often run for three or four weeks and live work has to be fitted in the changeover period between shows, or done in the shadow of a wall-mounted exhibition.

At 2B, we decided to invert the prevailing emphasis by which forms of art work are given precedence and gave priority to time durational work like music, expanded cinema, video and live performance.   Because no long term installed work has to be taken into account, the demands on gallery space and time are such that no rigorous selection of artists is necessary, and working about six to eight weeks in advance, a broad selection of performed work is accommodated.   If an artist working in the field of 'one-off' events feels capable of organising their own show, then there is really no reason why they shouldn't show at Butler's Wharf.   By the nature of the organisation of 2B, artists do virtually all their own arranging.   The members pay the rent and do general publicity for each month's programme, but as most funding bodies seem to have still not made up their minds about their relationship to the funding of performance work, 2B Butler's Wharf has been unable to get any ongoing backing to help put on the regular weekly shows, and artists must rely on their own often tenuous connections with the Arts Council, GLAA or other regional bodies.   Both the Arts Council and the GLAA have responded favourably in the region of renovation, but this represents their total commitment and in no way does it pre-suppose any further support for the venue in its own right.

Up to October 1976, 2B enjoyed a good but variable audience, but people tended to be put off by the out of the way location.   However, round about October, the venue began to appear regularly in Time Out and jointly on the 'Events' sheet with the London Film Makers Co-op and the Acme Gallery.   Also in October, the 2B Butler's Wharf 'Group Show' of eleven artists all showing work in one evening, followed by refreshments and entertainment, took place on the 23 rd .   A combination of these items seems to have established 2B as a regular event that people took interest in, and on the occasion of the group show, many of the people who had 'always meant' to take the trouble of finding their way to Butler's Wharf actually did so.

From that time, audiences have been consistently good and many people with an interest in live work now know the whereabouts of Butler's Wharf, or 'The Other South Bank' as it has recently been called, which as an area in general now has several more or less regular showing spaces like X6 Dance Studio or the various showings in 'A' and in 'D' blocks.   Other venues independent of established galleries and devoting themselves mainly to performed work of various kinds have started recently in other parts of London with the newly opened Faroe Road Studios venue, and in Newcastle on Tyne with the Ayton Basement which opened in December 1976.

80% of the 32 shows at 2B in the ten months since it was started have been live performances.   Some of these have been music, others have been structural and others theatrical, and the remaining 20% of the work presented has been either film or slide pieces.   This distribution of work has not been due to selection but simply by the demand of the artists who wanted to show work, and the ratio could vary again in the future, depending again on artists' demands.   Partly because of the experimental nature of much of the work shown and partly because art exhibitions should be free, no admission charges have been made, nor does 2B intend to make charges for admission in the future.   It would seem to be somewhat unfair to charge people to see work that cannot be critically predetermined, and any attempt to predetermine performance work would go against the 'one off' nature of most pieces.   A secondary form of live work like documentation, or an original tape, film or videotape piece which can be looked at again in an informed context can, I feel, be treated as a commodity, but the multiple and divergent forms of live work that exist in the present British context cannot in my opinion be made subject to such pre-emptive critical and commercial constraints.   In the light of this, 2B Butler's Wharf intends to continue its open access approach in relation to both artists and audience and looks forward to the ongoing and unbiased presentation of all forms of performed art-work.

See also: Curator's introduction