5 X 10: 50 Years of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, 1975–2025

“Hallwalls” per se was actually founded a week before Christmas 1974, on December 18th, when renowned minimalist and light artist Robert Irwin, having been invited by young co-founders Charlie Clough and Robert Longo (barely a generation younger than Irwin), visited Buffalo in person to talk about his work and artistic ideas to them and the small group of their fellow artist- and art student-friends living, working, and/or gathering socially at 30 Essex Street.

Essex Art Center, the already-established complex of artists’ studios and other artistic facilities and exhibition spaces on Buffalo’s West Side (still active today!) had been founded by sculptor Larry Griffis and his family at what historically had been a warehouse for storing ice harvested from Lake Erie for use in home iceboxes.

In January 1975, with barely a break for the holidays, an astonishingly full schedule ensued of visual art exhibitions by both “area artists” and already established visitors like Irwin, more artists’ talks, performances, concerts, film screenings, literary readings, and parties, at cooperating outside venues (such as Buff State’s Upton Hall and UB’s Gallery 219) and before too long (as early as February 1975) at 30 Essex Street itself, the organization’s legendary home for its first 5 years.

That hectic pace of eclectic, cutting-edge programming in all these disciplines set the pace and has never stopped. In the fifty years since, spanning all or part of six decades, through three major relocations (700 Main Street in 1980, Tri-Main Center in 1994, and the former Asbury Delaware Methodist Church back downtown on Delaware Avenue in 2006), Hallwalls has presented over 6,500 events and exhibitions featuring the work of well over 8,000 artists, musicians, other performing artists, filmmakers, media artists, and writers. Hallwalls has never stopped being a hotbed of contemporary cultural activity for local audiences, a resource and launching pad for “area artists” (including university and college art students and faculty), a presenter of artists from all over the world, and a major influence on the art world nationally and internationally. This historical exhibition includes objects, artifacts, publications, photographs, videos, and archival documents showcasing all periods of Hallwalls’ history, not only the celebrated first five years, which were instrumental in launching the last important American art movement of the 20th century, The Pictures Generation, but all ten of the five-year periods since, focusing on representative significant programming, artworld activism, notable artists, and groundbreaking curatorial contributions of each period, in visual art, video art, performance art, music, and writing.

Artifacts in this exhibition have been drawn from Hallwalls’ own extensive archives, the priceless Hallwalls archive within the vast archives of Buffalo AKG Art Museum (Gabrielle Carlo, Archivist), the personal archives of Hallwalls artists (especially Charles Clough and Joan Linder), ReUse Action (Kevin Hayes, Director, keeper of the Jackie Felix mural), and the Philadelphia-based West Collection (which granted us permission to reproduce this section from Joan Linder’s The Pink).

My personal thanks to Hallwalls’ present staff for their assistance with the research for and skillful installation of this exhibition (John Massier, Parrish Gibbons, Tammy McGovern, Steve Baczkowski, & Kate Gaudy); past Hallwalls staff member, board member, and exhibiting artist Biff Henrich, now of IMG_INK, for printing and mounting; and to all of them again plus hundreds of past staff members for fifty years of dedicated and brilliant programming and curation from which this necessarily small and somewhat arbitrary selection of representative objects has been cherry-picked. I did my best to fill this single room as fully as I could with the fruits of fifty years and four physical locations, and I take full responsibility for any omissions, of which, to my disappointment and in my defense, there are literally thousands.

I thank the Buffalo History Museum for making this actually rather generously sized room available to tell the story of Hallwalls’ contributions to Buffalo’s cultural history, especially Anthony Greco, Director of Exhibits and Interpretive Planning, and preparator and dedicated building keeper Johnny Salmeri. And I thank art handler extraordinaire Chris Kameck for the safe removal from ReUse Action, transportation, and reinstallation of Jackie’s 1996 mural, which serves as a kind of centerpiece of the show from the middle period of Hallwalls’ half century.

Above all, I thank the current Board of Directors of Hallwalls for their ideas, hard work, and generosity in this year of celebration and transition, especially current President Kris Kemmis, all the hundreds of Board members who have served over the decades since Hallwalls’ legal incorporation in May of 1977, and all the tens of thousands of Hallwalls members for their support and creativity, from the handful at the beginning to the hundreds today.

~ Edmund Cardoni
Hallwalls Executive Director
1990–2025

This exhibition was made possible with a grant from the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation, and with general and program support from Erie County Cultural Funding, Ralph C. Wilson Cultural Fund, M&T Bank, Hodgson Russ LLP, Lehigh Construction, Buffalo Spree magazine (media sponsor), and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, with support for other 50th-anniversary programming coming from the New York State Council on the Arts and New Music USA.