A Fading Memory and an Excel Spreadsheet – Researching Two Important but Overlooked Alternative Arts Venues from the 1960s

London’s two Arts Laboratories were artist-run spaces associated with some of the most innovative developments in the arts in Britain in the late 60s. Yet, until now, they have been missing from most published histories of the arts of the period. My book set out to chronicle their achievements and their struggles for survival.

The Drury Lane Arts Lab (1967–69) screened Andy Warhol’s 3¼-hour film Chelsea Girls, gave John and Yoko their first joint exhibition, hosted the first UK performance of Erik Satie’s 24-hour Vexations and was home to Jeff Nuttall’s many audience-attacking People Show performances and Jane Arden’s feminist theatre piece Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven. The Robert Street ‘New Arts Lab’ (1969–71) housed Britain’s first video workshop, TVX, the London Filmmakers Co-op’s first film workshop and a six-days-a-week cinema dedicated to showing new work by moving-image artists. It staged J G Ballard’s infamous Crashed Cars exhibition and was home to John and Dianne Lifton’s pioneering computer-aided dance and mime performances.

The Arts Labs clearly met a contemporary need and led to an explosion of artist-run spaces across Britain, many of them similarly short lived. My book records their achievements and the wider struggle to make the case for support for these new Lab-type spaces and associated new art forms (video, film, computers) – with the Arts Council hesitant to respond in the context of a tabloid press already hostile to ‘underground’ and experimental art.

I was one of the participants – I ran the cinema at both Labs – and my partner Biddy Peppin ran the Gallery at both (jointly with artist/writer Pamela Zoline). Fifty years later, as a researcher/historian, this degree of involvement has been both an advantage and a hazard. Memory is selective; our surviving records are heavily biased towards our own interests and still far from comprehensive. (None of those involved at that time seemed keen to keep records). So, I will talk about the challenges I confronted when trying to establish a comprehensive and balanced account, and the research tools I have used in its creation.