CK: How would you describe Cornershop to somebody who’s never even
heard of it?
AL: A funky little space in a residential neighborhood —just a box
really —that had these really mixed up events that were very social.
There were committed audiences for the actual thing that happened, but
there was also a big awareness that you would see people, you would talk,
you would have some drinks, you would go out after. So, it had a whole
atmosphere that was serious about the work, but that was also serious
about making a social space.
CK: Could you talk about
the conditions enabling you to open Cornershop?
AL: One: cheap rent—it was only fifty dollars a month and when I
saw the place it was completely boarded up and not really usable, but
I immediately talked to the landlords about, “could I make this
into a gallery/studio space and have events?” and they (Grace and
Mark) said, “yea, sure!” and they even did a few things to
contribute to it like fixing a window and making another wall. It was
never officially funded—ever— (I was never paid anything and
put my own money into it.). I did get money for events as it went on from
the poetics programme and cosponsorship from other arts organizations
such as squeaky wheel, CEPA, and Just Buffalo but it was a very casual
system. In the beginning there was no funding at all. But it was a supportive
atmosphere - just having landlords who wanted to do it, and the fact that
I knew so many artists that I thought would contribute to it.
CK: What was the neighborhood like?
AL: Very working class, kind of old time Buffalo—not that many renters,
most people own their homes, lots of Italians and people who had been
there a long time, and definitely not very wealthy. Actually Robert Creeley
describes it beautifully in his letter:
. . .an old edge indeed
just off Niagara Street which runs along the river and is largely an
old Italian neighborhood. Houses here are still insistently “single
dwellings” and despite the poverty there is a persisting sense
of neighborhood. So someone coming in is really looked over, not hostilely
but particularly.
CK: Because Cornershop was
geographically distant from the city’s other cultural spaces, it
was an overt –and not an incidental—destination for those
who attended exhibitions and events. Does the fact of the audience’s
specific journeying from home to Cornershop have any significance for
you?
AL: There was a sign that
said Cornershop hanging over the Door , (actually two signs, the first
was stolen) but because it was only open on the night of the event except
for a few times when people kept the keys and had a longer show, it was
mostly a word-of-mouth or you just knew about it (even though I tried
to advertise a lot). I liked that: that everything was an event, a performance,
whether it was paintings, sculpture, installation, actual performance,
it always was a performance of the space—and I think that’s
what I wanted: that it was the space itself that performed. When I was
fixing it, I purposely left the big window open so it wasn’t like
a closed white cube; I left stuff because it was a corner shop—remember,
it said “Tea and Salada” on the right upper window? —and
it had the giant radiator in the middle (which I thought was hilarious).
So, the space had its own personality as well, even though of course some
of it played to the gallery feel: white walls and things like that.
photo Nick Laudadio
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