‘Not For Tourists' is an alternative guide to New York City's contemporary art scene. In each <H>ART-edition, NY-based curator Niels Van Tomme highlights a non-profit cultural organization. Ranging from the well established to the marginal, from the intellectual to the politically engaged, ‘Not For Tourists' leads through the artistic heart of the Big Apple. This episode offers an interview with Matthew Higgs, director and chief curator of White Columns, one of the city's most prestigious and productive alternative art spaces.

Last year's exhibition ‘From The Archives: 40 Years / 40 Projects' celebrated forty years of memorable White Columns history. Walking through this chronological overview presenting one show from each year, one could not help but be impressed by the sheer volume of such a comprised selection. The exhibition included early projects by renowned artists such as Gordon Matta-Clark, Elaine Sturtevant, Group Material, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, John Currin, Fred Wilson, and Joseph Grigely, to name only a few from the impressive list. Showing a multitude of archival materials alongside a number of artworks originally presented in the gallery space, the exhibition read as a compendium of the organization's various addresses, projects and people. Such is the specific legacy of White Columns: a candid eye for uncompromising talent combined with a true belief in artists and their projects. But, let's ask Matthew Higgs what he thinks makes White Columns stand out from other alternative art spaces in New York City.

Matthew Higgs: "White Columns is the oldest of the first wave of alternative spaces in New York. We're celebrating our fortieth anniversary this year. We do a lot of projects and exhibitions, more than two hundred in the past five years alone, in which we try to involve as many people as possible. We have also sought to work with artists who operate outside of traditional art contexts. For example, we have an ongoing relationship with Creative Growth, a community of mentally disabled artists in Oakland, California, and we recently did an exhibition with Horst Ademeit from Düsseldorf. In our programs we try to reflect something of the genuine complexity of art, and present work without any hierarchical distinctions, which was a goal of Jeffrey Lew who founded the space in 1970."

White Columns has a very specific history. Formed by Jeffrey Lew and Gordon Matta-Clark, it played a prominent role in establishing New York's flourishing SoHo-scene of the 70s. However, today SoHo is merely a historical reference and White Columns has long ago moved to another location. In which way is that original legacy still relevant to the organization?
Higgs: "White Columns has always been a platform for artists, and historically its primary audience was other artists. This hasn't changed. The space was established partly from a sense of frustration with the status quo and we continue to operate in this spirit."

You started working at White Columns in 2005. What have been the biggest changes in New York City since your arrival here?
Higgs: "The shift in the economy. When I arrived in New York in 2005 the economy was buoyant, and the commercial art world was booming. It seemed, to me, to be an interesting time to re-imagine an organization like White Columns, to see if it was possible to rekindle something of its original spirit. I wasn't alone in thinking this way, A.A.Bronson had recently become the director of Printed Matter and Debra Singer had just taken over as director of The Kitchen. I think we all thought that these historical organizations had an increasingly vital role to play in an art world that was being distorted by money."

Do you think there is room for more art organizations in New York, or has the city reached a certain saturation point?
Higgs: "I think art determines the need for more spaces. When White Columns started, artists like Matta-Clark couldn't get their work shown, so they created spaces for themselves. And it was the same a few years later with Artists Space, The Kitchen etc. In the early 1990s, after the last major recession, new galleries like David Zwirner, Anton Kern, Gavin Brown's enterprise and Greene Naftali emerged to represent a new generation of artists and a new generation of ideas. Each subsequent generation needs its own exhibition context."

You're also a practicing artist, how do you combine that with being the director and chief curator of one of New York's most productive galleries?
Higgs: "I don't make very much work, and I don't show very often. So it is usually not an issue."

The next interview in this series will be with Sina Najafi of Cabinet's Exhibition and Event Space. What should be my first question?
Higgs: "What's your favorite color?"

Niels VAN TOMME

White Columns, 320 West 13th Street, New York, NY 10014
www.whitecolumns.org
On view June 11- July 17:
Gallery: Noam Rappaport
White Room: Keith Boadwee, Erin Allen, Isaac Gray
White Room: Judith Scott
Bulletin Board: Mark and Stephen Beasley