Anyone aware of Manchester’s contemporary art scene will be familiar with the independently-run International 3 gallery. After 13 years, it’s sad news that their building in Whitworth Street has been sold by the landlord, and that their colourful sign (by Bob and Roberta Smith, 2004) telling the world “Art is our airplane!” will be removed. But co-directors, Paulette Terry Brien and Laurence Lane, have plans, and are announcing a temporary re-location to 142 Chapel Street, Salford.
“The International 3 organisation will continue, and will expand,” Brien promises, sitting with Lane in the Whitworth Street building where Rachel Goodyear’s show Artificial Night is on till 2 August. Lane is equally upbeat. “This has been good, but I’m not nostalgic”, he says, “The next thing will also be good.”
From October the new International 3 HQ will act as an administrative base with limited exhibition space. “Alongside that,” Brien says, “We want to create an exhibition programme in found sites. We think this will be roughly a twelve-month period during which we will do about four or five temporary exhibitions. The platform will give us an opportunity to work with a variety of artists, to maybe start new relationships. So it’s all linked together, maintaining the organisation’s trajectory, which we hope after these twelve months will be relocation to a new gallery space.”
The move occurs during tough economic times for most art spaces, especially independent ones. But International 3 are confident they have done the groundwork to survive while continuing to play a valuable role, thanks to the way they’ve evolved. “When we first started we focused on being an exhibition space here and we did projects which raised the profile of artists in the city,” Brien says, “But over the last eight years the organisation has grown into lots of different areas of activity. We’ve diversified to include representing artists, whose work we sell at art fairs, and we’ve started doing projects (such as the recent Share Market Share event, reported in a-n News) which are about selling our knowledge and expertise.”
International 3 also chose not to reapply for organisational status with Arts Council England, but also opted not to become totally commercial, keeping their not-for-profit status. “There are lots of advantages to being within the public sector that we do not want to lose.” Brien says, “We want to maintain the relationship (with ACE) but just reduce the reliance. We’re in a strong position in many ways. During the last twelve months we’ve been working very hard to stabilise the organisation financially.”
“And the other possibility,” Lane mentions, “is philanthropy and patronage. We’ve now got patrons who gave us money to support the development of Rafal Topolewski’s solo show and Rachel’s solo show and to take part in two art fairs. So their private giving, because we’re part of an Arts Council Catalyst scheme, has enabled us to match pound for pound with money from ACE.” But he remains philosophical. “We critique it all the time, because of our background as artists and because of the position of art in society, we involve ourselves in this mixed economy with an awareness of the benefits and pitfalls of it, I guess. That’s really important to the way we work. We don’t just enter the market and go to arts fairs and attract collectors who are wealthy, and all those things. We approach it in a cautious and critical manner.”
And when they move, they intend to bring their sign with them.
More on a-n.co.uk
Setting up an artist-led space by Russell Martin
Tim Clark interviews Paulette Terry Brien at ART13
