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Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines.


History

Colab members came together as a collective in 1977, first using the name Green Corporation, and initially received a
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
(NEA) Workshop Grant through Center for New Art Activities, Inc., a small not-for-profit organization formed in 1974. In 1978, Collaborative Projects was incorporated as a not-for-profit of its own. By raising its own sources of funding, Colab was in control of its own exhibitions and cable TV shows. Advocating a form of cultural activism that was purely artist driven, the group created artworks, negotiated venues, curated shows, and engaged in discourse that responded to the political themes and predicaments of their time, among them the recessions of the 1970s, the Reagan era of budget cuts and nuclear armament, the housing crisis and gentrification in New York City, and other pressing social issues. In order to become a member, an artist had to attend three consecutive meetings. Artists who proposed artistic projects for funding needed at least two Colab members involved in the project.


Projects

From November 1978, different artist members organized and installed original one-off group shows in their own studios or other temporary sites, such as ''The Batman Show'', (591 Broadway 1979), ''Income and Wealth Show'' (5 Bleecker Street Store 1979), ''Doctors and Dentists Show'' (591 Broadway 1979), ''The Manifesto Show'' (5 Bleecker Street Store 1979), ''The Dog Show'' (591 Broadway 1979), ''
Just Another Asshole Just Another Asshole was a no wave mixed media publication project launched from the Lower East Side of Manhattan from 1978 to 1987. Barbara Ess organized and edited seven issues of Just Another Asshole, which formed thanks to an open, collaborativ ...
Show'' (5 Bleecker Street Store), ''
The Real Estate Show The Real Estate Show was a squatted exhibition by New York artists' group Colab, on the subject of landlord speculation in real estate held on New Year's Day (January 1, 1980) in a vacant city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street in the Lower Eas ...
'' (Delancey Street, Jan. 1980), ''Jay Street Film Shows'' (1979), ''Exhibit A'' (93 Grand Street, 1979), ''Island of Negative Utopia'' (
The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...
, 1984) and ''
The Times Square Show ''The Times Square Show'' was an influential collaborative, self-curated, and self-generated art exhibition held by New York artists' group Colab (aka Collaborative Projects, Inc) in Times Square in a shuttered massage parlor at 201 W. 41st and 7t ...
''Goldstein, Richard, ''The First Radical Art Show of the '80s'', Village Voice 16, June 1980, pp. 31-32Levin, Kim, ''The Times Square Show'', Arts September 1980, pp. 87-90Deitch, Jeffrey, ''Report from Times Square'', Art in America September 1980, pp. 58-63Sedgwick, Susana, ''Times Square Show'', East Village Eye Summer 1980, p. 21 (201 W 41st, June 1980): a large open exhibition near the center of New York's entertainment (and pornography) district (
Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
) that was put on with Bronx-based
Fashion Moda Fashion 时髦 Moda МОДА, whose name comes from “fashion” in English, Chinese, Spanish and Russian, colloquially referred to as Fashion Moda, started as a cultural concept guided by the idea that art can be made by anyone, anywhere. Fashion ...
. Seed money from the first Colab (Green Corp.) workshop grant through Center for New Art Inc. led to the creation of the ''Colab artists' TV series'' on Manhattan Cable (1978–1984) that included ''All Color News'', ''Potato Wolf'' and ''Red Curtain'', and New Cinema - a screening room on
8th Street and St. Mark's Place 8th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from Sixth Avenue to Third Avenue, and also from Avenue B to Avenue D; its addresses switch from West to East as it crosses Fifth Avenue. Between Third Avenue and Aven ...
for new wave Super 8 films transferred to video and projected on an Advent screen - the continued publication of ''X Motion Picture Magazine''(1979) (whose first issue preceded the formation of Colab); support and inspiration for the ABC No Rio cultural center (1980-82 - ongoing) that was created as a result of ''The Real Estate Show''; support of ''
Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine Launched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the ''Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine'' utilized the audio cassette medium to distribute no wave downtown music and audio art and was in activity ...
'' (1983), ''NightShift Theater'' 1979, ''Spanner Magazine'' (3 issues 1979), ''MWF Video Club'' (established in 1986) and ''
Bomb Magazine ''Bomb'' (stylized in all caps as ''BOMB'') is an American arts magazine edited by artists and writers, published quarterly in print and daily online. It is composed primarily of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplin ...
'' (1981). Membership in Colab shifted and evolved over the years, and some members of the original group are still highly visible active making art. In 1980, artists emulating 1970s Puerto Rican activists seized a building on New York's
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...
and opened it as a collectively run cultural center.
ABC No Rio ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gal ...
was passed on to successive managements until today it is an
anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
cultural center run by a collective with close ties to the publishing group
Autonomedia Autonomedia is a nonprofit publisher based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn known for publishing works of criticism. Staffed by volunteers, they have published over 200 books, usually with 3,000 of each run. Its most renowned book is Hakim Bey's essays o ...
."


A Book About Colab (and Related Activities)

In 2016 ''A Book About Colab (and Related Activities)'' was published by
Printed Matter, Inc Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit grant-supported bookstore, artist organization, and arts space which publishes and distributes artists' books. It is currently located at 231 11th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of N ...
. It was edited by Max Schumann, the director of Printed Matter, and contained a Foreword and Afterword by art writer and Colab member Walter Robinson. The book traces the output of Collaborative Projects from the late 1970s through the mid 1980s and a testimonial about their particular practice of collaboration, collectivity, and social engagement, while reflecting an iconic period of NYC cultural history. In keeping with the democratic "by and for artists" ethos of Colab, the publication places this material alongside newly solicited texts from many of the group’s members – a mix of reflections and anecdotes, statements, manifestos, and excerpts from the ‘Colab Annual Report’, which provide a close perspective on the meaning of Colab for those who came into its orbit.


Exhibitions

In 2011, Printed Matter, Inc. presented an exhibition entitled ''A Show about Colab (and Related Activities)''. In 2012, The
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
Art Galleries presented ''Times Square Show Revisited'', an in-depth look at the original ''Times Square Show'' (1980). ''Times Square Show Revisited'' was the first focused assessment of the landmark exhibition organized by the artist group Collaborative Projects, Inc. In 2013, an exhibition workshop entitled ''XFR STN (Transfer Station)'' was held at the
New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...
. In early 2014, there were four concurrent art exhibitions in New York City around ''
The Real Estate Show The Real Estate Show was a squatted exhibition by New York artists' group Colab, on the subject of landlord speculation in real estate held on New Year's Day (January 1, 1980) in a vacant city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street in the Lower Eas ...
'': at James Fuentes Gallery,
ABC No Rio ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gal ...
, the Lodge Gallery, and Cuchifritos Gallery/Essex Street Market. ''The Real Estate Show Revisited''. That year Art International Radio also featured an interview and conversation between
Jane Dickson Jane Dickson (born May 18, 1952) is an American painter. She lives and works in New York City. (New York). Biography Dickson received her B.A. at Harvard University (1976) and a Studio Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ...
,
Coleen Fitzgibbon Coleen Fitzgibbon (born 1950) is an American experimental film artist associated with Collaborative Projects, Inc. (a.k.a. Colab). She worked under the pseudonym Colen Fitzgibbon between the years 1973-1980. Fitzgibbon currently resides on Ludlow ...
, and Becky Howland about Colab and the 1980
The Real Estate Show The Real Estate Show was a squatted exhibition by New York artists' group Colab, on the subject of landlord speculation in real estate held on New Year's Day (January 1, 1980) in a vacant city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street in the Lower Eas ...
which birthed the
ABC No Rio ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gal ...
cultural center. From April 15 to May 15, 2016,
Printed Matter, Inc Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit grant-supported bookstore, artist organization, and arts space which publishes and distributes artists' books. It is currently located at 231 11th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of N ...
presented a restating of ''The A. More Store'', a Colab-sponsored artists’ outlet for low-priced multiples from the early 1980s The selling exhibition included over 100 artworks from over 50 participating Colab members, including works on loan from historic ''A. More Stores''. The first ''A. More Store'' evolved from the Gift Shop at the legendary Colab-organized ''
The Times Square Show ''The Times Square Show'' was an influential collaborative, self-curated, and self-generated art exhibition held by New York artists' group Colab (aka Collaborative Projects, Inc) in Times Square in a shuttered massage parlor at 201 W. 41st and 7t ...
'' and appeared shortly after on Broome Street in 1980 with the tag-line “You won’t pay more at the A. More Store”. Other iterations of the store were later presented at
Barbara Gladstone Barbara Gladstone ( Levitt) is an American art dealer and film producer. She is owner of Gladstone Gallery, a contemporary art gallery with locations in New York and Brussels. Gladstone Gallery History In 1980, Gladstone gave up teaching art hist ...
Gallery,
Jack Tilton John Havemeyer Tilton Jr (April 25, 1951 – May 6, 2017) was an American art dealer, based in New York City. He was born in Littleton, New Hampshire, the son of a father who had studied art at Yale University, designed Christmas cards, and serve ...
Gallery,
White Columns White Columns is New York City’s oldest alternative non-profit art space. White Columns is known as a showcase for up-and-coming artists, and is primarily devoted to emerging artists who are not affiliated with galleries. All work submitted is ...
, and
Printed Matter, Inc Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit grant-supported bookstore, artist organization, and arts space which publishes and distributes artists' books. It is currently located at 231 11th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of N ...
. The 2017 documentary film '' Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat'' by
Sara Driver Sara Miller Driver (born December 15, 1955) is an American independent filmmaker and actress from Westfield, New Jersey. A participant in the independent film scene that flourished in lower Manhattan from the late 1970s through the 1990s, she gain ...
contains extensive coverage of Colab, ''
The Real Estate Show The Real Estate Show was a squatted exhibition by New York artists' group Colab, on the subject of landlord speculation in real estate held on New Year's Day (January 1, 1980) in a vacant city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street in the Lower Eas ...
'', ''
The Times Square Show ''The Times Square Show'' was an influential collaborative, self-curated, and self-generated art exhibition held by New York artists' group Colab (aka Collaborative Projects, Inc) in Times Square in a shuttered massage parlor at 201 W. 41st and 7t ...
'' and
ABC No Rio ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gal ...
through on-camera interviews with once Colab president
Coleen Fitzgibbon Coleen Fitzgibbon (born 1950) is an American experimental film artist associated with Collaborative Projects, Inc. (a.k.a. Colab). She worked under the pseudonym Colen Fitzgibbon between the years 1973-1980. Fitzgibbon currently resides on Ludlow ...
and art critic
Carlo McCormick Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. Pedagogic and art writing activities McCormick was Senior Edito ...
.


Notable members

*
Charlie Ahearn Charlie Ahearn (born 1951) is an American film maker living in New York City. Although predominantly involved in film and video art production, he is also known for his work as an author, freelance writer, member of Colab, and radio host. He is m ...
*
John Ahearn John Ahearn (born 1951) is an American sculptor. He is best known for the public art and street art he made in South Bronx in the 1980s. Life and art Ahearn grew up in Binghamton, New York, with his twin brother Charlie Ahearn, who is a film di ...
*
Andrea Callard Andrea Callard (born Chicago 1950) is a media artist long connected with the artists group Colab in New York City. Biography Early life Andrea Callard was born in Chicago in 1950 and grew up in Muncie, Indiana. She graduated from high school at Ki ...
*
Diego Cortez James Allan Curtis (September 30, 1946 – June 21, 2021), known professionally as Diego Cortez, was an American filmmaker and art curator closely associated with the no wave period in New York City. Cortez was the co-founder of the Mudd Club, ...
*
Jane Dickson Jane Dickson (born May 18, 1952) is an American painter. She lives and works in New York City. (New York). Biography Dickson received her B.A. at Harvard University (1976) and a Studio Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ...
*
Coleen Fitzgibbon Coleen Fitzgibbon (born 1950) is an American experimental film artist associated with Collaborative Projects, Inc. (a.k.a. Colab). She worked under the pseudonym Colen Fitzgibbon between the years 1973-1980. Fitzgibbon currently resides on Ludlow ...
*
Stefan Eins Stefan Eins is an Austrian-United States, American artist whose artwork has been exhibited since 1970. His belief that art and scientific experimentation are one and the same significantly impacted art and society. He is most known for founding th ...
*
Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, ...
* Joe Lewis *
Alan W. Moore Alan W. Moore (born 1951, in Chicago) is an art historian and activist whose work addresses cultural economies and groups and the politics of collectivity. After a stint as an art critic, Moore made video art and installation art from the mid-1970s ...
*
Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and Aesthetics, art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses. Life and work ...
*
Tom Otterness Tom Otterness (born 1952) is an American sculptor best known as one of America's most prolific public artists. Otterness's works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums around the world, notably in New York City's ...
*
Judy Rifka Judy Rifka (born 1945) is an American artist active since the 1970s as a painter and video artist. She works heavily in New York City's Tribeca and Lower East Side and has associated with movements coming out of the area in the 1970s and 1980s s ...
* Walter Robinson *
Christy Rupp Christy Rupp (born 1949) is an American artist and activist. Early career Rupp attended Colgate University (BA, 1974), Rhode Island School of Design - RISD (MAT 1974), and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Rinehart School of Sculpture (MFA ...
*
Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...
*
Robin Winters Robin Winters (born 1950 in Benicia, California) is an American conceptual artist and teacher based in New York. Winters is known for creating solo exhibitions containing an interactive durational performance component to his installations, somet ...


Footnotes


References

* Julie Ault, ''Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985'', University of Minnesota Press, 2002. * Richard Boch, ''The Mudd Club'', Feral House, 2017. * * * * Marc Masters, '' No Wave'', Black Dog Publishing, London, 2007. *
Carlo McCormick Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. Pedagogic and art writing activities McCormick was Senior Edito ...
, ''The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984'',
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
Press, 2006. * Alan W. Moore, ''Artists' Collectives: Focus on New York, 1975-2000'' in ''Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945'', Blake Stimson & Gregory Sholette, (eds) University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2007, pp. 193–221. * Alan W. Moore and Marc Miller (eds), ''
ABC No Rio ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gal ...
Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery'', Collaborative Projects, NY, 1985. * ''The Red Book'', 1978 (NEA application document authored by Coleen Fitzgibbon, Andrea Callard and Ulli Rimkus) Andrea Callard Papers, ''The Downtown Collection'', Fales Library,
NYU New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-United States Secretary of the Treasu ...
. *Graham Thompson,''American Culture in the 1980s'', Edinburgh University Press, 2007, p. 223


External links



Colab Archive

Colab artists texts concerning the
New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...
XFR STN project at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colab American artist groups and collectives Arts organizations based in New York City No wave Arts organizations established in 1977 1977 establishments in New York City