Alloway may have identified worrying signs in criticism and curatorship, but his criticisms should not be taken for disillusionment with, let alone alienation from, the art system as a whole. In “The Artist Count” he had declared his ideological position to be reformist—“an adversary but not an estranged role”—and he remained in favour of the gallery system for most art, most of the time. In 1982 he wrote: “The fact is an art gallery is basically a good way to view art: it is not too large, the art is concentrated, and there are not too many people as a rule. Marxist contentions about its exclusivity and hence irrelevance fail to do justice to the possibilities for sustained attention that it usually offers.” Indeed, even the more fervent A.W.C. sympathizers did not seek to destroy the gallery as a vehicle for showing art, at least not directly. However, they “in effect called for removing the profit motive in art dealing, which would, if implemented, have destroyed the gallery system, of course.” For all its faults and declining standards, “it is hard to think of another system that could show as many artists and care for its stars as well.” Where they could be criticized—in addition to standards of curatorship—was that “Dealers have not been responsive to the new conditions of the art world…” The new conditions included not only new forms of art that challenged the gallery as a space such as Conceptualism, Earth works, events, and new technologies, but also work by feminist and Black artists. The problem for them was not that galleries were unsuitable, but that commercial galleries were rarely available. Thus Alloway welcomed the recent development of “alternative spaces… a term that usually refers essentially to artist-originated systems of distribution and includes a core of resistance to commercialism.” The system needed reform: “The problem of the dealers will not be solved by abolishing them, as the A.W.C. called for, but by reducing their exclusivity. That is precisely the aim of co-ops.” which, their supporters believed, captured the best of both worlds: they are “an alternative to the commercial system in their organization, both social and economic, but they are not opposed to the gallery as a mode of display.”