Fifty years ago in Los Angeles, when SSB first launched, there was a flourishing world of radical performance. Between 1976 and 1980, Some Serious Business produced more than fifty performances with groundbreaking artists—many at the earliest stages of their careers.

—The Flaming Bowling Ball

SSB has had many defining chapters over the past fifty years, including recent artist residencies, film, art and performance—all guided by one principle: the artist always comes first. In those fifty years we have never asked for your help, until now. Like other non-profits, we recently lost our primary funding source and we need your support.

The Some Serious Business Collection from SSB's evolutionary period is housed at the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art—but it is not yet complete. We are recording an oral history in order to capture the voices of those who lived it and to extract the vital social history and role of “alternative” spaces, galleries, and experimental artists in shaping Los Angeles' art landscape during the mid to late 1970's.

As art historian Homer Arnold, who is conducting the interviews with SSB co-founder Susan Martin, says: “There are still large gaps of missing moments that are in danger of being lost completely, but we can stem that tide, because the 1970's is one of the oldest decades where we can still create primary history. Many of those artists, curators, and critics who were there—pushing art out into the world—are still alive and are eager and happy to recollect.”

Our goal is to raise $25,000 by the end of this year. We have already recorded Bob and Bob, Linda Montana, and Tony Bill, among others, and have dozens more to go. Partner with us and let’s get this history into the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian.

All gifts to Some Serious Business are tax-deductible. And no contribution is too small or too large!

—Lucinda Childs. From I WAS SITTING ON MY PATIO THIS GUY APPEARED I THOUGHT I WAS HALLUCINATING. April 1977. Photo: Horst

Gifts over $250 will receive facsimiles of rare ephemera found in the Archive, including copies of a letter by Laurie Anderson about cooking possum, a ticket to Robert Wilson and Lucinda Child's performance of I WAS SITTING ON MY PATIO THIS GUY APPEARED I THOUGHT I WAS HALLUCINATING, and a facsimile of the original invitation to Hermann Nitsch’s Orgies Mysteries Theatre.

Very special gifts will receive a limited edition gold plated #NTSOS ("not the same old shit") necklace.

Be part of the story! If you have a memory of an SSB event, leave a comment or contact info@someseriousbusiness.org.

To learn more about SSB and what we do, visit our website.

—Arrowcatcher by Peter Whiel, SSB’s first performance. December 11, 1976

SSB Legacy Project

DON'T LET 70s LA ART HISTORY GO UNWRITTEN