Criss-Cross was an artists' co-operative that was formed in Colorado, USA, in the early 1970s. Having evolved from the 1960s artists' community,

Drop City Drop City was a counterculture artists' community that formed near the town of Trinidad in southern Colorado in 1960. Abandoned by 1979, Drop City became known as the first rural "hippie commune". Establishment In 1960, the four original foun ...

, Criss-Cross focused on issues surrounding "pattern and structure" and became associated with the 1970s art movement

Pattern and Decoration Pattern and Decoration was a United States art movement from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The movement has sometimes been referred to as "P&D" or as The New Decorativeness. The movement was championed by the gallery owner Holly Solomon. The ...

(P&D). In 1974, the five founders, Gene Bernofsky, JoAnn Bernofsky, Richard Kallweit, Charles DiJulio and Clark Richert, artists and filmmakers from Drop City, regrouped in Boulder, Colorado, to start the new artists' co-operative, Criss-Cross. Its purpose, like Drop City's, was to function in a "synergetic" interaction between peers to create experimental artistic innovation. Between 1974 and 1980, the number of participants grew to include the filmmaker Fred Worden (included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial), the University of Arkansas painter/printmaker Marilyn Nelson, and the New York artists Gloria Klein,

George Woodman George Edgar Woodman (April 27, 1932 – March 23, 2017) was an American ceramicist, painter, and photographer.

, Mary Ann Unger and others. Between 1974 and 1980, Criss-Cross published the nationally distributed avant garde art periodical ''Criss-Cross Art Communications'' and curated national and international

art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhi ...

s focused on "pattern and structure". Criss-Cross constructed the first "61-Zone System" (in collaboration with

Steve Baer Steve Baer (born 1938) is an American inventor and pioneer of passive solar technology. Baer helped popularize the use of zomes. He took a number of solar power patents, wrote a number of books and publicized his work. Baer served on the board ...

of ZomeWorks of Albuquerque,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

) at the Art Research Center in Kansas City. Members of Criss-Cross included:

References

* Michael Paglia
"Paint by Numbers"
* Michael Paglia, (July 29, 1999)
"Flash Point"
* Michael Paglia

{dead link, date=July 2016 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes , ''Denver Westword'', March 17, 2005 Artist cooperatives in the United States Contemporary art organizations Colorado culture