HUDSON, New York — To talk about New Work By Linda Mussmann and Spaces in Places at Time & Space Limited (TSL) is to tell the story of TSL, and to do that, we must start with the heart of the matter: love. A leading multidisciplinary artist of her generation, Linda Mussmann is a “laborer of love” kind of person. She is also a bona fide lover of art, theater, community, and, above all, her muse: Claudia Bruce. Fifty years ago, Mussmann and Bruce crossed paths for the first time. “I met Claudia in 1976 at my production of Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans. She was a reporter for a women’s newspaper called MAJORITY REPORT. Later I borrowed her van to move some stuff at the storefront, [and] the rest is history,” she told me by email the day after we spent an hour walking through the show together.
Mussmann’s comments about Bruce provoked sentimental emotions as I attempted to unfurl the timeline of their co-creative partnership that ignited a half-century ago. Mussmann founded the ever-evolving TSL in New York City in 1973 as an experimental avant-garde theater company in a storefront on 22nd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood, and Bruce joined as co-director in 1976. After years of urban life, they relocated to Hudson in 1991, where TSL has been a thriving force for arts and culture since. Today, the eclectic, politically engaged nonprofit “art-house” outpost boasts a gallery, movie theater, vintage bookstore, and center for community activity.
Although TSL celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023, these joint exhibitions are the first time that Mussmann has exhibited her artwork there in this capacity — a bit of a stunning fact that reflects her devotion to the greater public. From the beginning, her focus as an artist has been to realize provocative work based on movement, light, and sound. With this show, we get to see more of her politically orientated concerns through her painting practice.
The exhibition alternates between color photos of theater sets she created (Spaces in Places) and black and white paintings that reveal her seriousness as an artist-activist with a bone to pick about the urgency of the sociopolitical climate (New Work by Linda Mussmann). One powerful example of this is her text-laden painting “Yes I Know This” (2024), loaded with sharp statements alluding to feelings of crisis, such as “here is the edge,” “the missing is missed,” and “time to run.” The title of another work, “Is God Sleeping?” (2024), aptly captures the overall message of these large-scale pieces; in other words, who is really in charge these days? “I got in the mood to do something big” the artist stated matter-of-factly regarding these unstretched canvases, which not only are large in size, but also speak to the enormous existential intensities of our times.
In 1980s New York, during a creative renaissance that included Keith Haring’s rogue acts of graffiti and critical conversations on emerging artistic strategies, led by theorists such as Rene Ricard, Mussmann — already a radical creator — was in the thick of it. A series of photographs displayed on TSL’s partitioned walls document the theatrical sets she designed between 1981 and 2014. These images highlight the various professional and untraditional spaces that allowed her to realize projects at diverse locations like La MaMa and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other venues. The black and white photo “Silent When Loaded” (1985), taken at Merce Cunningham’s studio, features teacups stacked neatly atop each other in a pyramid shape and backlit for a melodramatic mood. “They loved us,” she said of Cunningham and his partner, John Cage, who were fans of Mussmann’s and Bruce’s experimental artworks.
As I wandered through the shows with Mussmann as my welcoming tour guide, I furiously took notes to capture the amusing stories that animate the visions around the room. The photo “Lenz” (1982) documents Bruce as she twists her body downward, surrounded by an austere sterling interior in the TSL storefront. Mussmann explained that she created this silver environment with tin that she reclaimed from her parents’ farm in Indiana. She drove back to New York with the tin secured to the roof of her car and then fabricated the setting for Bruce to explore as a dancer. “Most of my work was to promote Claudia,” she said sweetly.
We paused at images that document her “Harbors Wait” (1985) performance and installation in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as part of the museum’s short-lived summer performance series program. “They let the crazy people in once,” she chuckled about the various underground artists in the series, adding that it was the only time MoMA ever hosted such a thing. “They weren’t ready,” she noted as we marveled at the impossibility of this type of event at MoMA today. As we spoke about that special fluke — that MoMA ever allowed spontaneous work in its coveted space — she recalled how the performance included a hodgepodge of miscellaneous activities. The MoMA happening enabled Mussmann to tease out the operatic nature of her work in all its glory: “I did it all. I showed a movie of a cow,” she told me with glee.
In the coming weekends, TSL will present two screenings of Mussmann’s work in collaboration with Bruce (followed by Q & As with Mussmann), including the collage-film “Omaha to Ogden (Southwesterly)” (1986/2021) on Sunday, January 19, and Mao Wow (1999) on Sunday, January 26, offering fans a chance to see her old-school footage in conjunction with the exhibition. As we said goodbye, Mussmann’s handsome smile and sturdy presence enlivened the entire space around her. Her care for TSL was tangible as she departed down the hall, on to her next adventure for the day. While TSL continues its mission to educate and expand the artistic quality of life in the community it serves, Mussmann remains steadfast at the helm of this mighty mothership.
New Work by Linda Mussmann and Spaces in Places continue at Time & Space Limited (434 Columbia Street, Hudson, New York) through February 23. The exhibitions were organized by the gallery. Associated event details are available on the TSL website.
