(1979) Volume 2, Number 3

              vol 2 no 3 may 1979 profile hallwalls buffalo hallwalls is an alternative space located at 30 essex street a quiet backstreet on the west side of buffalo the gallery offices and loft space are a part of a refurbished turn-of-the-century ice factory in 1974 artists living in the building began exhibiting their work in a hallway adjacent to their studios hence the name hallwalls from a 500 sq ft hallway to a 3,100 sq ft gallery space the expanded hallwalls now includes four large exhibition rooms a prin ting press room run by hard press director ann rosen and a small experimental space called the matrix room hallwalls programming which covers exhibition perfor mance art video film,artists4n-residence music literature lectures and symposiums has helped to develop the gallery into a major arts organization in western new york state indeed buffalo artists associated with the gallery have an insatiable appetite for the new and experimental in art even though the gallery operates on a modest budget 36,000 for the 1977-78 season hallwalls managed to get plenty of mileage from its resources for example last year hallwalls averaged one exhibition a week a third of which occurred in locations other than the gallery itself in addi tion to this energetic exhibition schedule hallwalls was responsible for bringing over 40 visiting artists to buffalo hallwalls has a strong tradition of co-sponsoring art events with other galleries schools and artist-run spaces such as the albright-knox art gallery the art departments of the state university college of buffalo and suny at buffalo and cepa gallery and workshop located across the court yard from hallwalls this cooperation helps to provide buffalo with a stronger and more cohesive contemporary art milieu hallwalls has also participated in exchange exhibitions with galleries in chicago new york and canada as well as participating in events at artpark in lewiston new york a characteristic which sets hallwalls apart from other artist-run spaces is the nature of its living and working space next to the gallery upstairs in a converted brick stable is a 2,500 sq ft area which is the nucleus of hallwalls acti vities upstairs in this plank-floored season-pine trimmed skylit space is to be found an apartment studio kitchen library with wood burning fireplace archive room meeting room with video set-up offices and guest facilities for visi ting artists a recent 5,000 grant from the nea will help in further developing the library which houses a collection of video and audio taped documentation of readings and perfor mance events along with majry arts journals and magazines all of which are open to the public for reference and re search visual arts program besides the major exhibitions presented each month during the programming season hallwalls also supports two related visual arts programs our visiting artist program provides for direct personal contact between artist and audience through discussions with the artists the western new york audience has an opportunity to gain new insights and understanding of contemporary art issues john maggiott the director of hallwalls plays an important part in programming and de veloping this relationship the second visual arts program is centered in the matrix room curated by william currie this room is designed to encourage local artists to experiment with the dynamics of the space and to present their work on an informal basis exhibitions in the matrix room run for two week periods fiction diction a literary program has been firmly established at hallwalls with the advent of fiction diction equally representing the local writing community as well as bringing prose writers to buffalo fiction diction run by anne turyn has provi ded a format where personal contact with the writers has attracted large lively audiences 40-50 per event the suc cess of this program has spawned a new periodical top stories and has earned it a high priority in hallwalls pro gramming top stories is a magazine devoted to prose the magazine operating on a single-author format publishes new writers known and unknown who have participated in the reading series issn 0160-0699