Lucy Lippard | 5 Prose Fictions

Lucy Lippard

5 Prose Fictions

New York City, USA: Self-published, 1976

[14] pp., 21.6 × 27.9 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

A self-published mimeographed work featuring five pieces by Lippard: "The Cries You Hear", "N.Y. Times IV", "Headwaters", "Into Among" and "First Fables of Hysteria". he reproduced typewritten text includes the author's corrections and revisions. 5 Prose Fictions was produced for the A.I.R. Gallery, the first all-female artists cooperative gallery in the United States. 

The title is extremely rare and - when it does appear for sale - it is typically priced around a thousand dollars. New Documents republished the title earlier this year (see next post). 

"The A.I.R. Gallery was founded because, despite gains made by the early women artists’ movement, the majority of the emergent women had no place to show their art. The commercial galleries were filled up with men and, even if more good will existed than it does, it would take forever for women to sift through the extant openings. Other co-ops also tended to be run by men and to lack the cohesion that a political alliance, no matter how feeble, provides an all-woman gallery. 

[...]

A.I.R. is a non-profit, the proceeds of all sales going directly to the artist with no dealer’s commissions detached. Located in the heart of SoHo, A.I.R. participates (perhaps of necessity) in the art world’s promotion and power games, competing for reviews and attention and sales with the rest of the gang, and doing well at it. Like the commercial galleries, it has a stable of 20 artists; here the similarities end. A.I.R. has no director. According to the tenets of the women’s movements there are no leaders; everybody has her say on everything; work and money are solicited equally from all members with the usual problems of haves and have-nots, workers and non-workers, solved intramurally. Most significantly, it is committed to a diversity of styles not found in the most high-powered emporia, as befits the organ of a movement devoted to a multiple, open, flexible view of life and opposed to the single, acceptable, currently fashionable image, opposed to the rejection of self and emotion for a place in the establishment’s sunlamp. The original group of A.I.R. members was selected from slides of some 600 “unknown” artists. The resulting stylistic mix has been maintained in the turnovers, and A.I.R.’s major problem is probably the fact that there are too many good artists for its small space, especially considering the women from out of town who want to show in New York, but cannot be here to do the daily work entailed by membership.

For the most part, A.I.R. has resisted the temptation to focus inwards on its own artists rather than looking outwards towards all women artists. It holds yearly invitational shows, and recently had its first international exhibition—a group of women from Paris, none of whom was previously known in New York. A.I.R.’s non-profit status allows foundation support of parallel projects like the Monday night programs of film, panels, readings, discussions; the sponsoring of outside exhibitions, such as that of women artists from the 1930’s recently at Vassar; a possible periodical—and this portfolio, which offers a sampler of the gallery’s art for prices more accessible to other artists and to the growing feminist public which breaks art world (though not class) boundaries. It is only a pity that the space is too small to house the Women’s Art Registry of slides, from which the bulk of A.I.R.’s artists were initially selected."

- Lucy Lippard