Q&A: Mark Allen ’93 on the evolution of an 'art collective'

Mark Allen '93, assistant professor of art at Pomona College, created Machine Project as a Los Angeles gallery in 2003. His vision: a space that "could present all different kinds of culture—art, science, music, literature—in an accessible storefront" open to passersby.

Machine Project has since evolved into an art collective, collaborating in the production of interactive and unconventional shows with other museums. The New York Times, for example, recently spotlighted the Machine Project's "Field Guide to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art."

Q: How does Machine Project operate?
We take two approaches. First, we host events at the gallery itself. It’s a pretty small space—it seats maybe 60 people. I’m really interested in the intimacy of that scale. I think there’s an impulse with a lot of small non-profits, when they get to a certain size, to rent a larger space and make things ‘warehouse-y’.

Second, we work with other venues as a way to expand into larger projects without having to transform Machine’s core neighborhood feel. Every venue has a different context that has a different kind of audience. We think about how to create pieces that make sense to the audience there. 

The show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is a good example. For constructing that event, we thought about how to make pieces that would work for a wide range of audiences. 

We generally try to have these shows pay for themselves so it doesn’t come out of our core operating budget. It’s like the other venue is subcontracting the cultural production. It’s the same as if an artist were doing a show at the museum: the museum pays for the catalogue or pays for hanging the work, shipping the work, whereas the artist is responsible for creating the content and thinking about how that content would work in this different context. When we go to do things at other venues or other locations, we are operating more like an artist or an art collective, whereas when we do things at Machine, we’re operating more as a venue or more as the cultural space the activity would happen in.

It’s interesting and exciting for us to be able to work in these two different ways. The projects are similar whether we’re working at Machine or collaborating with another museum, but our position is different. We shift from being the venue to being the people who are providing the content.

Q: How are you doing in the current economy?
It’s challenging. About 40 percent of our budget comes from foundations, and most foundations have seen their endowments shrink. On the other hand, we have been doing well with support from individuals and members. In fact, we grew our membership this year from 100 to 400. So we’re actually doing fairly well on the smaller donation side. I feel like the problems of funding for the arts are just beginning.

Q: Do all staff members at Machine Project have arts backgrounds?
We have one paid staff person, our operations manager, Michele Yu. She has some background in the arts, and also worked at the Sci-Fi Channel for a long time. My background is art. I studied art at Skidmore and at the California Institute of the Arts. We have different kinds of volunteers and people who are doing different projects. They all vary pretty dramatically in where they’re coming from, but a lot of people are from music and from art.

Q: What are some of the projects that you’re working on now or that are coming up?
The next big project at Machine is in April. We’re working with Sara Newey and Christy McCaffrey, and they are transforming the gallery into a forest for a month. They have a lot of experience with set design, so it’s meant to be hyper-real. During the month that it’s up, we’ll be having different events in the space that relate in some way—everything from bird watching to campfire songs to elfin poetry readings. Over the course of that month, the forest slowly becomes more and more evil and haunted, so it’s a continual transformation of the space.

Coming out of the LACMA show, there’s a lot of interest in other institutions doing projects with us. Those are all in development stages right now.

Q: You’ve talked about upcoming projects in other cities. Do you find that whichever city you’re working with influences the project, or its success?
Most of the stuff we’ve done has been in Southern California or in Los Angeles, so we’re now looking at these opportunities to do things in other places. That’s one of the challenges. In LA, I have a group of collaborators and artists that I know. I know what kinds of things they do, so it’s easy to draw from that pool. I think the challenge of doing things in other places is figuring out how to deal with that. You don’t want to spend an enormous budget just flying every LA artist to some city. The process of figuring out how to work with people in other places is one I’m looking at now.

There’s an artist on our board, Fritz Haeg, an old friend of mine, who does really interesting projects all around the world and in other cities. He’s gotten very good at figuring out how to meet people and do these kinds of projects, so I’m trying to learn from him. That’s a new direction for us.

Q: Who is your core audience?
Our goal, over time, is to try and build a really diverse audience. Every week, we do something different at the gallery. It might be a plant show one week, a poetry reading the next week, a jam-making workshop the next week, and then a robotics class or something.
We felt it was much more interesting to have a poet and a magician and a violinist and a chef in a room talking about poetry than 20 poets all talking about poetry. So, over time, we built up an audience that’s different kinds of people and different ages. 

Q: What do you teach at Pomona?
I’m on sabbatical right now, but I teach everything that involves both art and technology. “Electron Wrangling” was an electronics class that looks at robotics and electronic projects from an art perspective. Another class I teach is called “Computer Programming for Artists,” which is exactly what it sounds like. And then I’ll teach a design class or an occasional art theory class.

Q: Do your students get involved with Machine Project?
We have interns who come from Pomona and sometimes I work on projects with students. I bring a lot of artists from out of town for speaking gigs, performances, or shows at Machine, and I always try and get them to come over to Pomona to visit with my students.

Q: How did your experience at Skidmore influence what you set out to do in your professional life?
When I was at Skidmore, I was doing studio-based drawing and painting, which I really enjoyed a lot but isn’t directly connected to what I do now. I think a lot of the ways we develop ideas at the gallery—ideas come out sitting around with artists, talking about ideas, brainstorming. In a way, that’s sort of what going to art school is like, or being in the art department at Skidmore. You spend your time working on your art, but you spend a lot of time drinking coffee with people and talking about art ideas. ~ Interview by Lauren Donovan ’10, Office of Communications