Collectivities: Protest, counter-culture and political postmodernism in New York City artists' organizations, 1969--1985.
Item
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Title
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Collectivities: Protest, counter-culture and political postmodernism in New York City artists' organizations, 1969--1985.
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Identifier
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AAI9986363
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identifier
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9986363
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Creator
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Moore, Alan W.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Sally Webster
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | American Studies | History, United States
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Abstract
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A succession of New York City artists' organizations had political agendas and avant-garde intentions. They idealized collective action, and were linked by overlapping memberships. This dissertation asserts that collectivity is a key method in postmodern artistic practice.;The Artworkers Coalition (AWC) and the Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG) mark the beginnings of the political critique of institutions in the United States. GAAG's work was journalistic conceptual art. Artists at the Soho alternative space 112 Greene Street embodied an informal version of collectivity. Artists Meeting for Cultural Change took up the politics of the AWC. AMCC included members of the British conceptual art group Art & Language, who had made collectivity itself a principal object of study. AMCC produced An Anti-Catalog, an American art history revised to include women and artists of color.;Collaborative Projects (aka Colab) formed in reaction to the Soho alternative spaces, working in film, media and punk music. The South Bronx art space Fashion Moda, which exhibited graffiti as art, led Colab to produce the Times Square Show, a large exhibition in a vacant building. Political artists responded to Colab, forming the collectives Group Material and Political Art Documentation/Distribution. Group Material opened a gallery in the East Village, and exhibited art mixed with popular culture artifacts, a method they called "dialectical." PAD/D arose as a "left-to-socialist artists' resource and networking organization," maintained an archive, produced a journal, and coordinated Artists Call against U.S. intervention in Central America, and Not For Sale, against gentrification in the East Village.;Group Material was key in the elaboration of a political post-modern art by theorists opposed to neo-expressionism during the early 1980s. The group used the vocabulary of a neo-pop and commodity-based art to critique both popular culture and high art.;The legacy of these artists' groups is felt today in new practices of public art and museum exhibition, the number and variety of groups practicing "activist art," and in the historical reconsideration of conceptual art.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
