National Association of Artists' Organizations

The National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO) was, from 1982 through the early 2000s, a Washington, D.C.-based arts service organization which, at its height, had a constituency of over 700 artists' organizations, arts institutions, artists and arts professionals representing a cross-section of diverse aesthetics, geographic, economic, ethnic and gender-based communities especially inclusive of the creators of emerging and experimental work in the interdisciplinary, literary, media, performing and visual arts.^[1] At the apex of its activities, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, NAAO served as a catalyst and co-plaintiff on the Supreme Court case, National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley having spawned the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression. NAAO's dormancy in the early years of the 21st century led to the formation of Common Field.^[2]

NAAO emerged from the New Artpace conference and attendee directory held in 1978 at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, CA.^[2] The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) began funding artists' organizations, artist-run alternative spaces and artist-driven initiatives in 1973 when an extension of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), began training and supporting jobs for artists working at these sites.^[3] The NEA's Visual Arts Program supported the formation of NAAO to provide networking opportunities (national conferences and membership directories) to this emergent constituency.

NAAO led the nation into the Culture Wars of the early 1990s by responding rapidly and pro-actively through its national network of community-based arts and cultural spaces to Congressional attacks against artists' rights and freedom of expression. These attacks included the ripping of images of Andre Serrano's Piss Christ on the floor of Congress, and led to the Corcoran Gallery of Art's summer of 1989 decision to cancel the exhibition The Perfect Moment, a retrospective of works by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. These attacks led to other incidents of arts censorship across the country, the inclusion of a "decency clause" authored by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) written into the grant guidelines of the National Endowment for the Arts and the cancellation of NEA grants due to content restrictions.^[4]

NAAO member organizations in 1992, as published in Organizing Artists: A Document and Directory of the National Association of Artists' Organizations, were:^[5]

ABC No Rio (New York, NY)

Acme Art Company (Columbus,. OH)

(Brooklyn, NY)

A.I.R Gallery (New York, NY)

(Helena, MT)

Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art (Newark, NJ)

(Minneapolis, MN)

Alliance for the Arts (New York, NY)

(New York, NY)

(New York, NY)

(Atlanta, GA)

Alternative Museum (New York, NY)

(Omaho, NE)

(Houston, TX)

(Toronot, Canada)

Appalshop (Whitesburg, KY

(Phoenix, AZ)

Arlington Arts Center (Arlington, VA)

Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA)

(New York, NY)

(Philadelphia, PA)

Art In General (New York, NY)

(New York, NY)

(Pensacola, FL)

Art Papers (Atlanta, GA)

(Washington, DC)

(Beaumont, TX)

(Great Falls, VA)

Artemisia Gallery (Chicago, IL

(Baltimore, MD)

(Miami Beach, FL)

(Minneapolis, MN)

Artist Trust (Seattle, WA)

Artists’ Alliance (Lafayette, LA)

Artists Space (New York, NY)

(New York, NY)

(San Francisco, CA)

(Phoenix, AZ)

(St. Paul, MN)

(Glen Ellyn, IL)

(Atlanta, GA)

Arts Midwest (Minneapolis, NM)

(Lakeland, FL)

(Richmond, VA)

(Raleigh, NC)

Artswatch (Louisville, KY)

Asian American Arts Centre (New York, NY)

Association of Performing Arts Presenters (Washington, DC)

(Santa Monica, CA)

(Atlanta, GA)

(Phoenix, AZ)

(Baltimore, MD)

Bay Area Video Coalition (San Francisco, CA)

(Erie, PA)

(Chicago, IL)

Beyond Baroque (Venice, CA)

(Birmingham, AL)

(Chicago, IL)

(San Antonio, TX)

Boston Center for the Arts (Boston, MA)

(Boulder, CO)

(El Paso, TZX)

(Flint, MI)

(Cincinnati, OH)

(Los Angeles, CA)

(Sacramento, CA)

Capp Street Project (San Francisco, CA)

(Cleveland, OH)

(St. Paul, MN)

(Santa Fe, NM)

Center for Photography at Woodstock (Woodstock, NY)

. (New York, NY)

Centro Cultural de la Raza (San Diego, CA)

(Washington, DC)

(Buffalo, NY)

Chicago Artists’ Coalition (Chicago, IL)

(Cleveland, OH)

(New York, NY)

(Washington, DC)

(Half Moon Bay, CA)

(Seattle, WA)

College Art Association (New York, NY)

Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (Detroit, MI)

Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans, LA)

(Philadelphia, PA)

(Shelburne Falls, MA)

(Phoenix, AZ)

Creative Time (New York, NY)

CSPS (Cedar Rapids, IA)

(San Francisco, CA)

Dance Place (Washington, DC)

Dance Theatre Workshop/DTW (New York, NY)

Dance Umbrella (Austin, TX)

(Portland, ME)

DARE/ (Dallas, TX)

DCAC/ (Washington, DC)

Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts/DOCA (Wilmington, DE)

(Wilmington, DE)

Delta Axis (Memphis, TN)

Detroit Artists Market (Detroit, MI)

(Detroit, MI)

Dialogue, Inc. (Columbus, OH)

(Tucson, AZ)

(Houston, TX)

Dixon Place (New York, NY)

(Dover, DE)

Nexus Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta, GA)

(Philadelphia, PA)

911 Media Arts Center (Seattle, WA)

(Dobbins, CA)

Exit Art (New York, NY)

(New York, NY)

The Exploratorium (San Francisco, CA)

(San Francisco, CA)

The Fabric Workshop (Philadelphia, CA)

(San Francisco, CA)

(San Francisco, CA)

(Jamestown, NY)

(Los Angeles, CA)

Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. (New York, NY)

(Milwaukee, WI)

(Washington, DC)

(Fullerton, CA)

Galeria de la Raza (San Francisco, CA)

(Pt Reyes Station, CA)

Godzilla (New York, NY)

Gran Fury (New York, NY)

Guerrilla Girls (New York, NY)

Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (Buffalo, NY)

(Richmond, VA)

. (New York, NY)

(San Francisco, CA)

Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA)

(Helena, MT)

Henry Street Settlement (New York, NY)

(Wakefield, RI)

Heresies (New York, NY)

Highways Performance Space (Santa Monica, CA)

(Brookville, NY)

Hopkins Center (Hanover, NH)

(Houston, TX)

(Ellicott City, MD)

(Huntington Beach, CA)

Illinois Arts Council (Chicago, IL)

(Cincinnati, OH)

(Oklahoma City, OK)

Installation (San Diego, CA)

INTAR International Arts Relations (New York, NY)

(Minneapolis, MN)

(Scottsdale, AZ)

Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco, CA)

(Becket, MA)

John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI)

(San Antonio, TX)

Just Buffalo/Literary Center (Buffalo, NY)

Kala Institute (Berkeley, CA)

(Kansas City, MO)

Kirkland Art Center (Clinton, NY)

Kirkland Arts Center (Kirkland, WA)

(Amherst, MA)

(New York, NY)

(San Francisco, CA)

(La Jolla, CA)

Lawndale Art Center (Houston, TX)

(Brooklyn, NY)

(San Francisco, CA)

(Charlotte, NC)

Light Work (Syracuse, NY)

The Loft (Minneapolis, MN)

Loft Theatre (Tampa, FL)

(Los Angeles, CA)

(Los Angeles, CA)

(Los Angeles, CA)

(Louisville, KY)

(New York, NY)

(New York, NY)

(Cos Cob, CT)

(Phoenix, AZ)

(Miami, FL)

Maryland Art Place (Baltimore, MD)

Mexic-Arte Museum/Multi-Cultural Works (Austin, TX)

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (Baltimore, MD)

Mid-America Arts Alliance (Kansas City, MO)

Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (Minneapolis, MN)

Mobius (Boston, MA)

Movement Research (New York, NY)

Musee D’Art Contemporain de Montreal (Montreal, Quebec)

(Chicago, IL)

(Oakland, CA)

The Nathan Cummings Foundation (New York, NY)

(Washington, DC)

National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (Bandon, OR)

(Washington, DC)

(Chicago, IL)

(Reno, NV)

(Kutztown, PA)

New England Foundation for the Arts (Cambridge, MA)

(New Harmony, IN)

New Langton Arts (San Francisco, CA)

(Atlanta, GA)

(Brooklyn, NY)

New York Foundation for the Arts (New York, NY)

Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art/Snug Harbor Cultural Center (Staten Island, NY)

Nexus Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta, GA)

(Philadelphia, PA)

911 Media Arts Center (Seattle, WA)

(Cleveland, OH)

Ohio Arts Council (Columbus, OH)

(Columbus, OH)

. (Oklahoma City, OK)

On the Boards (Seattle, WA)

(New York, NY)

Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia, PA)

(New York, NY)

Pentacle (New York, NY)

Performance Space 122 (New York, NY)

(Philadelphis, PA)

(Boston, MA)

Ping Chong & Company (New York, NY)

Pittsburgh Filmmakers (Pittsburgh, PA)

Polarities (Brookline, MA)

Printed Matter, Inc. (New York, NY)

Pro Arts (Oakland, CA)

(New York, NY)

Public Art Works (San Rafael, CA)

Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County (Cincinnati, OH)

(Rochester, NY)

Pyramid Atlantic (Riverdale, MD)

Rachel Rosenthal Company (Los Angeles, CA)

(San Francisco, CA)

Randolph Street Gallery (Chicago, IL)

Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT)

Reflex (Seattle, WA)

(St. Paul, MN)

(Baltimore, MD)

(Brooklyn, NY)

(New York, NY)

San Francisco Art Institute (San Francisco, CA)

(San Francisco, CA)

(San Francisco, CA)

San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (San Jose, CA)

(Santa Barbara, CA)

Santa Monica Museum of Art (Santa Monica, CA)

School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL)

(Baltimore, MD)

(Utica, NY)

(Charlottesville, VA)

(Atlanta, GA)

(Richmond, VA)

(Decatur, GA)

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, ME)

(Venice, CA)

(Seattle, WA)

(Chicago, IL)

Southern Arts Federation (Atlanta, GA)

(San Francisco, CA)

Southern Theater (Minneapolis, MN)

(San Antonio, TX)

The Space (Boston, MA)

(Birmingham, AL)

SPACES (Cleveland, OH)

Spirit Square (Charlotte, NC)

(Minneapolis, MN)

Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources (Buffalo, NY)

(Exeter, NH)

(San Diego, CA)

(Chico, CA)

Texas Fine Arts Association (Austin, TX)

(Miami, FL)

(Uniontown, PA)

(Tulsa, OK)

(Tulsa, OK)

(Berkeley, CA)

(Grand Rapids, MI)

Video Data Bank (Chicago, IL)

Visual AIDS (New York, NY)

(Anchorage, AK)

Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY)

Volcano Art Center (Hawaii National Park, HI)

(Austin, TX)

Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN)

(Milwaukee, WI)

(Washington, DC)

(Washington, DC)

(Berwyn Heights, MD)

Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH)

White Columns (New York, NY)

WhiteWalls (Chicago, IL)

(Austin, TX)

(St. Paul, MN)

(New York, NY)

X-Communication (New York, NY)

(Chester Springs, PA)

Zone (Springfield, MA)

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