Runway x KINGS: Bricks and Mortar

To give a bit of background, KINGS was established in 2003 as a CBD located gallery and ran for 17 years from the upper levels of a three-storey building on King Street. In February 2020, we were forced to move out due to rising rental costs. We had planned to operate a mobile model for a few years but with COVID restrictions, planning short duration, high volume pop-up events didn’t seem so viable. We have since decided to open a new venue in 2021 and have just signed a lease on a new space this week! We’ve also had a lot of new people join the committee, so there have been a lot of changes happening lately!

And that’s brought up a lot of questions about what the organisation was and what we want it to be. We’ve had conversations within the committee but also with external people in the arts community. It’s been important to include a lot of people in the conversation as KINGS is part of a big community and everyone has a stake in the gallery in some way.

One of the things that we definitely wanted to change was that the gallery wasn’t wheelchair accessible in our previous location. I’m happy to say that our new space is, so that’s a huge improvement for the organisation.

I guess the other thing was the scale of KINGS. In our previous location we had artist studios, monthly exhibitions across three gallery spaces, a video program and performance nights in between shows. It was a huge program that required a lot of work at a pretty relentless pace, so we wanted to reconsider the scale and frequency of the program and establish something that would be more manageable. 

I’ve found that focusing on a few really strong outcomes can be better than scrambling to deliver a massive program. Artists often don’t get the support they need when the people running the organisation are stretched way too thin. 

I think this shift for KINGS is pretty interesting because we have to make all these intentional choices. Instead of inheriting a program and a physical space, everything has become a conscious decision.

And that also brings up this question of the legacy and the history of KINGS. It’s been a lot to consider as we’re shifting spaces and making drastic changes to the organisation. The King Street gallery was quite distinct and we’ve always been associated with that physical space, so we needed to consider what we want in this new location and how we shape the gallery.

We’ve had a lot of discussions about changing the name. ‘King’ is this patriarchal, colonial, hierarchical term that doesn’t at all represent what the organisation does or who’s running it. A lot of us on the committee had issues with it and the name came from the physical location that we’ve now left behind. However, in the end those issues are more to do with the associations around the term ‘king’, not the history of KINGS Artist-Run.

Changing the name would have been this huge rebranding exercise which would have taken up a lot of our time and energy. We thought that we should just focus on working towards a program that would subvert any negative associations the name might have. You know, just focus on what we do rather than an ideological and potentially superficial rebrand.

I was a bit cautious when I applied because of the name. I was like, what does this mean? But as I saw the work that KINGS had shown it was clear that the name wasn’t an indication of some patriarchal institution. A lot of my cohort from honours had shown at KINGS. I thought that it was really exciting that KINGS was showing work from lots of different artists at varying stages of their careers.

I think facilitating that learning process for emerging artists has always been one of the strengths of KINGS. It’s a space where emerging artists can apply to have their first show, start developing their practice and get experience exhibiting outside of a university context. I think it’s really exciting as a committee member and as an organisation to be able to support emerging artists. We’re able to assist with those aspects of exhibiting that you may not be initially confident with, like install advice and editing texts or statements.

I agree. Whether you have gone to art school or not, there’s a lot that you don’t learn about being an artist. Participating in ARIs is a way to gain an understanding of all the steps involved in building conversations around your work and finding a community. I’m excited about the space for learning that ARIs offer for exhibiting artists and us on the committee.

Definitely. Within the committee it’s important to get people working on projects that line up with their interests. It’s a huge amount of work being on a volunteer committee and I think it’s really important that those involved are learning and benefiting from their roles. In the past we have had general volunteers but if we re-established that, we would make sure that they were getting something meaningful out of it rather than us just sourcing free labour from art students. 

Yeah, there could even be a mentoring dynamic between a committee member and the volunteer. Building a relationship feels important.

At the moment it seems quite difficult for emerging artists and graduates because there aren’t a lot of places for them to show. There have been so many shifts happening within the ARIs in Melbourne with spaces moving, scaling down and closing. I was very sad to hear C3 at the Abbotsford Convent won’t be reopening. On top of that, a lot of spaces have had to push their programs from last year into this year.

It also seems like many galleries are favouring curated programs over open calls so there is a lack of opportunities for artists whose practices aren’t well known. We’re looking forward to our exhibition call out for our new venue and creating a program that includes both emerging and established artists.

At FELTspace we sometimes had established artists who would use the gallery as a testing site for new works, which meant you’d have this great exchange between an experienced artist paired with someone who has just finished art school.

It’s also valuable to consider how ARIs function together to increase access and create pathways for practices to evolve. It seems like there’s a real sense of camaraderie between ARIs in Melbourne at the moment. Once KINGS started looking for a space, SEVENTH, TCB and Bus Projects all offered to share what they had learned from their moves. We’re really thankful for that support because it’s very challenging to keep these spaces open with dwindling government funding and rapidly increasing costs. I think between the ARIs there is an understanding of how important it is to work collectively to support a spectrum of practices and levels of experiences.