Join the Waitlist!

Email us at nyc.critclub@gmail.com to add your name to the waitlist for Andrew Woolbright’s Spring 2024 course.
If a space becomes available, we will be in touch via email. Thank you!

Enroll in a Spring 2024 Course and receive a $20 discount on a
2024 Membership for the Artist Lecture Series Club.

About this Course

The Rundown on the History of Artist-Run Spaces is a 6 week online course led by Artist, Writer, + Curator Andrew Woolbright. This seminar course will invite artists to read, discuss, and learn about the philosophies and cultural impact of artist-run spaces. 

What do Willem and Elaine De Kooning, Lois Dodd, Howardina Pindell, Emma Amos, Alex Katz, Yayoi Kusama, Romare Bearden, Ed Kienholz, and Gordon Matta-Clark, all have in common?

They were all members and supporters of artist run galleries. 

The Run Down on Artist Run is going to be an in depth exploration of artist run galleries and curation. Why? As more and more of us become aware of how myopic and exclusionary art history has been, fewer  recognize the vital role that artist run spaces have played in producing a vibrant counterculture, one that has always existed in parallel to the gallery system of Madison Avenue and later Chelsea.

Part of our obligation as artists is to know and say the names of those who are not being said. We must, as Jesse Murry says, give a breath that allows for another breath, and find ways to give space to others as much as we request it for ourselves. 

Part of the reason we know and care about artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Ed Clark, Nicole Eisenman, and Claus Oldenberg, or know what Happenings, installation art, and conceptual art are, are because of artist run spaces. Where galleries with greater market considerations are more restricted, artist co-ops and project spaces have been able to give space and opportunities to artists who were unable to find traditional forms of patronage and exhibition; many of whom would later prove to be significant reflections of the avant-garde of their time. 

This course is a call to action, and will begin with a definition and history of curation itself, through institutions and also through open-ended forms of curation developed by independent curators, before going into the deep parallel history of artist-run spaces; to offer practical insights into the political meaning of artists curating, and useful methods of approach from the past. We will also be looking at current artist-run galleries and visiting a number of them together.

The course will culminate in a curatorial project for the participating artists at our Chelsea Space!

Guest Speakers

Faculty Bio

Andrew Paul Woolbright (American, b. 1986) lives in Brooklyn, NY and is an MFA graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design. Woolbright was previously a resident at the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program and has recently exhibited with Rachel Uffner, New York (2023); Microscope Gallery, New York (2022); Hesse Flatow, New York (2022); The Hole, New York (2021); Galerie Valeria Cetraro, Paris (2021); Zurcher Gallery, New York (2020); and Ada Gallery, Richmond (2020). His work has been reviewed in Artforum, TimeOut New York,ArtViewer, Two Coats of Paint, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Reader, and his work is currently in the collection of the RISD Museum. In addition to exhibiting, he is Editor-at-Large at the Brooklyn Rail, director of the gallery Below Grand on the Lower East Side. In 2024, he was awarded the Irving Sandler Prize, awarded to an artist that builds community as part of their artistic practice. He currently teaches at Pratt Institute and The School of Visual Arts in New York.

Financial Aid is available. NYC Crit Club provides payment plans, BIPOC scholarships and additional aid based on extenuating circumstances. Please click here to learn more before checking out.