Color 8.1 Buy This Issue Now

• 
• 
• 

Artist-run spaces are slippery beasts, even in the most stable times. Forget evolving neighbourhoods, rollercoaster economies, terrorism, fire, theft, landlords, thieving landlords, drug-induced fiery terrorist economies, and anything else that can easily stop an artist-run space in its tracks. Forget also the general disdain that most artists have for the quotidian duties of running a business, and it’s a wonder that these spaces exist at all, let alone survive for more time than it takes for the drugs to wear off, and reality to set in.  Philadelphia’s Space 1026 is an exception to the rule – a glowing neon anomaly in a city more receptive to pro sports and heavy industry. Founded in 1997, the workspace/gallery/venue has played home to countless driven artists and even more wayfaring miscreants. Inspired in part by the energy of the mid 90s chaos of Rhode Island’s “Fort Thunder”, Space 1026’s founders wanted to establish a space for “making, producing and creating, not for some outside world of aficionados, but for each other, for our own kind.”