PROJECT BACKGROUND

The Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art is a partnership between Artspace and an artist co-op of 23 members. It was incorporated as a Minnesota for-profit corporation in 1993 to create an artist-owned and managed building that provides stable, affordable studio, teaching and exhibition space for mid-career visual artists.

The Traffic Zone is a beautiful and affordable place to work because the artists serve as business partner with Artspace in operating the building. In exchange for the work done on behalf of the building, the artists pay a rent rate much lower than the market rate for studio space in the Twin Cities.

On the first three floors of the building are work-only studios for mid-career visual artists. Artspace and commercial tenants lease space on the top three floors and along the storefront on the first floor.

This beautifully renovated 19th-century warehouse, listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, features hardwood floors, high ceilings, exposed brick and beams, lots of windows, and dramatic views of downtown Minneapolis.

$3.6 million and plenty of elbow grease transformed the vacant Appliance Parts building into the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art. Built in 1886, this building originally housed farm machinery implements; in 1888, the National Biscuit Co. built a three-story addition and installed ovens for baking Nabisco cookies and crackers on the fifth and sixth floors.

Members of the co-op have included an eclectic, international mix of painters, photographers, conceptual artists, sculptors, book artists and ceramicists. Many are recipients of Bush Fellowship, McKnight, Jerome Foundation, and Minnesota State Arts Board grants.

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