The space is the place
After an inspiring five-year run, ShedSpace changes directions
The innovative backyard exhibition series ShedSpace has had an inspiring five-summer run, but it is relinquishing its outbuildings-cum-galleries back to the mole crickets and mildew.
From humble beginnings in founder and curator Joey Orr’s Decatur back yard in 2000, ShedSpace grew into a summer art tradition.
Orr’s idea was to put art in a new context by connecting the art world to transitional neighborhoods and attracting non-gallery-goers to art shows. To that effect, Atlanta artists were invited to create one-night only exhibitions in sheds in the city’s gentrifying neighborhoods including East Atlanta, Peoplestown, Ormewood Park and Reynoldstown.
Since that propitious debut, ShedSpace has grown into one of the most imaginative exhibition venues in the city. By recruiting homeowners outside the art world to open up their sheds to their neighbors, obscure Atlanta subdivisions and edgy neighborhoods had the sexy high beams of art thrown on their humble burgs, for an evening at least. And in the process, Orr curated some memorable exhibitions, the likes of which have not been seen anywhere else. (See boxes.)
But this summer’s ShedSpace will be Orr’s last, at least in its current configuration. It’s a casualty of Orr’s success as an art administrator. As director of development and education at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and vice president of the board of directors for Art Papers, Orr just doesn’t have the time to devote to the increasingly labor-intensive exhibition series.
Instead, Orr is redefining ShedSpace as an occasional project-based endeavor held throughout the year.
In its next incarnation, Orr wants ShedSpace to address the unanticipated, racial and economic issues that leached out of the Southern soil during the course of the exhibitions.
Artist Lisa Tuttle’s 2003 project for a West End shed illustrated some of the tensions that arise when white homeowners relocate to transitional black neighborhoods. When the white shed owners initially moved into the pre-dominately black neighborhood, Orr says, neighbors pelted them with toilet paper. “It wasn’t until their first child was born that people began to really accept them.” Tuttle’s project addressed the history of integration in the neighborhood, dating back to the 1870s, and created a dialogue that Orr says dramatically changed his perception of what ShedSpace was and what it could accomplish.
“Their interest in their neighborhood and in ShedSpace really changed my thinking on the way the program could have a positive influence on neighborhood issues in Atlanta.
“The truth of the matter is, I walked into ShedSpace very naively, so I didn’t have a pre-set agenda ... and that allowed this trans-formation to take place. I think it’s time to show folks the simple, powerful things ShedSpace is capable of doing now.”
To that end, the issue of economic and racial segregation will be the crux of future ShedSpaces, says Orr.
“What’s so cool about it, is not only has it forced me to look at what some of the problems are in Atlanta, but it’s also given me a way to maybe do something about it.”