Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center

About the Gallery
Hallwalls was founded on Buffalo's West Side in late 1974 by a group of young visual artists (some of them still just students at the time)—including Diane Bertolo, Charles Clough, Nancy Dwyer, Robert Longo, Larry (LP) Lundy, Cindy Sherman, and Michael Zwack—who carved an exhibition space out of the walls of the hall outside their studios in a former icehouse. From the beginning, their interest was in exhibiting new work by local artists (including, at first, their own) and providing opportunities for exchange between them and artists in other cities, by inviting visiting artists to give talks or create installations, and by organizing exchange shows with similar spaces springing up in other cities. Their focus was always interdisciplinary as well as outward looking, featuring not only visual artists, but also musicians, writers, filmmakers, and video and performance artists. Hallwalls soon established itself as an influential force for innovation within the community as well as nationally, and stretched its then minimal resources by joining forces with other cultural institutions—both larger and smaller—on collaborative projects.

On January 14, 2006, Hallwalls reopened its exhibition galleries, media arts screening/performance facilities, and offices at Babeville (the former Asbury Delaware Methodist Church) on the corner of Delaware Avenue and Tupper Street, in spaces we are leasing from Righteous Babe Records, the building's savior, owner, developer, and only other co-occupant.

About the Presentation
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, New York, will celebrate its 50th anniversary at Independent 20th Century with a display of posters, publications, and archival documents from its early history. Founded in 1974–75, Hallwalls played a role in launching one of the most significant movements in postwar American art, the Pictures Generation. The landmark 1977 exhibition Pictures, curated by Douglas Crimp at Artists Space in New York, featured work by Hallwalls co-founder Robert Longo, and by Jack Goldstein and Sherrie Levine, who had been invited to visit Hallwalls and show some of their earliest work in Buffalo. The follow-up show at Artists Space, curated by Helene Winer, included Longo, his Hallwalls co-founder Charles Clough, and fellow artists Cindy Sherman, Nancy Dwyer, Diane Bertolo, and Michael Zwack.