Les espaces alternatifs new-yorkais, nouvelles instances de légitimation artistique

Through the close study of Artists Space, this article aims at understanding the role and status of New York’s alternative spaces, as they appeared in SoHo in the early 1970s. As new spaces of exposure for New York’s avant-garde artists, alternative spaces rapidly succeeded in offering new legitimacy to experimental art forms, as well as in launching the career of innovative artists. Through a detailed analysis of the urban, economic and artistic identity of Artists Space, I will show how the notion of marginality became alien to the concept of avant–garde, in the context of an increasingly dynamic art market