Colab
Encyclopedia
Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City
artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. Colab came together as a collective in 1977, and initially received an NEA Workshop Grant through Center for New Art Activities, Inc., a small not-for-profit formed in 1974. The grant was divided equally among the artist members in groups of three.
In 1978, Collaborative Projects was incorporated as a not-for-profit and later received its tax-exempt status from the IRS, so that it could apply for grants from the NEA and other sources independently. Colab was active for about 10 years and became distinguished by the raw energy of its members and sometimes politically engaged open membership. By raising its own sources of funding, Colab was in control of its own exhibitions and cable TV shows, and bypassed the bigger, more established alternative spaces
From January 1979, different artist members put on several notable one-off group shows in their own studios or other temporary sites, such as The Manifesto Show (5 Bleecker St., 1979), The Real Estate Show (Delancey St., Jan. 1980), and especially The Times Square Show (201 W 41st, Summer 1980), a large open exhibition near the center of New York's entertainment (and pornography) district put on with Bronx-based Fashion Moda
. Seed money from the first Colab workshop grant led to the creation of New Cinema, a screening room on St Mark's Place for narrative Super 8 films transferred to video and projected on an Advent screen; the publication of X Motion Picture Magazine(1979); support and inspiration for the ABC No Rio cultural center
(1980-82 (ongoing); Potato Wolf artists' TV series on Manhattan Cable (1978–1984), support of the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
(1984), and MWF Video Club (established in 1986). Members of the original group are presently highly active making art, and the membership has shifted and evolved. ABC No Rio was recently awarded a $1.6 million capital construction grant from the City of New York.
including film
and video
for distribution and cable-cast, and live cable TV broadcasts, as well as other more conventional art media such as graphics and printed materials."
"This statement (the one above) defines three fundamental aspects of Colab - members' desire to create and distribute "collaborative work" under the umbrella of an artist-run organization, their focus on new media versus traditional art objects and their openness to a range of aesthetic styles that would meet the "needs of the community-at-large." This last point was critical to the group's identity and served as a the foundation of a workshop-oriented administration that encouraged experimentation in many different areas, including but not limited to TV production, video editing, film, and performance art
. With various workshops operating simultaneously and the participants' ability to draw on like-minded members as partners, Colab could produce many projects without the burden of an institutional identity. Typically, individual members worked together on more than one project in small subgroups that changed and over lapped from one project to the next."
In 1980, artists emulating 1970s Puerto Rican activists seized a building on New York's Lower East Side
and opened it as a collectively run cultural center. ABC No Rio
was passed on to successive managements until today it is an anarchist cultural center run by a collective with close ties to the publishing group Autonomedia
."
"In the bohemia of downtown Manhattan
, the band - and crew - based practices of art rock
and super-8 film making thrived. The first artists' group to achieve prominence in New York was Colab (Collaborative Projects), which produced a show in Times Square
in 1980. This exhibition was a groundswell of popularly accessible socially themed artworks held in an empty building that has housed an erotic massage parlor. Critics called it "punk art" -- "three cord art anyone can play." The South Bronx art space Fashion Moda
. participated in the Times Square Show, bringing in some of the new generation of graffiti artists who had been exhibiting in the Bronx as part of the hip-hop culture of writers, rappers, and break dance
rs. A forty-member democratically run membership group; Colab inspired other artists to form groups and mount huge shows in Brooklyn
lofts, not to mention collaboration with the Washington Project for the Arts
, for the Ritz Hotel Project
in Washington, D.C.
in 1983.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. Colab came together as a collective in 1977, and initially received an NEA Workshop Grant through Center for New Art Activities, Inc., a small not-for-profit formed in 1974. The grant was divided equally among the artist members in groups of three.
In 1978, Collaborative Projects was incorporated as a not-for-profit and later received its tax-exempt status from the IRS, so that it could apply for grants from the NEA and other sources independently. Colab was active for about 10 years and became distinguished by the raw energy of its members and sometimes politically engaged open membership. By raising its own sources of funding, Colab was in control of its own exhibitions and cable TV shows, and bypassed the bigger, more established alternative spaces
Alternative exhibition space
An alternative exhibition space is a location, et al. other than the normal professional venues, for the exhibition of artwork to the public. Located in places which have been converted, such as a store front empty space into an exhibit space, for an organized assembly of artworks from an...
From January 1979, different artist members put on several notable one-off group shows in their own studios or other temporary sites, such as The Manifesto Show (5 Bleecker St., 1979), The Real Estate Show (Delancey St., Jan. 1980), and especially The Times Square Show (201 W 41st, Summer 1980), a large open exhibition near the center of New York's entertainment (and pornography) district put on with Bronx-based Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda is a cultural concept. As a museum of science, art, invention, technology and fantasy in its South Bronx location from 1978-1993 it combined aspects of a community arts centre and a worldwide progressive arts organization.-History:...
. Seed money from the first Colab workshop grant led to the creation of New Cinema, a screening room on St Mark's Place for narrative Super 8 films transferred to video and projected on an Advent screen; the publication of X Motion Picture Magazine(1979); support and inspiration for the ABC No Rio cultural center
ABC No Rio
ABC No Rio is a social center located at 156 Rivington Street on New York City's Lower East Side that was founded in 1980. It features a gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab...
(1980-82 (ongoing); Potato Wolf artists' TV series on Manhattan Cable (1978–1984), support of the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
Launched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan, in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus cassette series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting-edge downtown music, documenting the New York scene and advancing experimental composers of the time...
(1984), and MWF Video Club (established in 1986). Members of the original group are presently highly active making art, and the membership has shifted and evolved. ABC No Rio was recently awarded a $1.6 million capital construction grant from the City of New York.
Quotes Describing Colab
"We [Collaborative Projects] are functioning as a group of artists with complementary resources and skills providing a solid ground for collaborative work directed to the needs of the community-at-large. Specifically we are involved in programs facilitating development, production, and distribution of collaborative works. These works are realized in various mediaMedia (arts)
In the arts, a media or medium is a material used by an artist or designer to create a work.-Architecture:In the art and science of architecture, the design and construction of buildings and interiors, infrastructure and other physical structures are created...
including film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
for distribution and cable-cast, and live cable TV broadcasts, as well as other more conventional art media such as graphics and printed materials."
"This statement (the one above) defines three fundamental aspects of Colab - members' desire to create and distribute "collaborative work" under the umbrella of an artist-run organization, their focus on new media versus traditional art objects and their openness to a range of aesthetic styles that would meet the "needs of the community-at-large." This last point was critical to the group's identity and served as a the foundation of a workshop-oriented administration that encouraged experimentation in many different areas, including but not limited to TV production, video editing, film, and performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
. With various workshops operating simultaneously and the participants' ability to draw on like-minded members as partners, Colab could produce many projects without the burden of an institutional identity. Typically, individual members worked together on more than one project in small subgroups that changed and over lapped from one project to the next."
In 1980, artists emulating 1970s Puerto Rican activists seized a building on New York's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
and opened it as a collectively run cultural center. ABC No Rio
ABC No Rio
ABC No Rio is a social center located at 156 Rivington Street on New York City's Lower East Side that was founded in 1980. It features a gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab...
was passed on to successive managements until today it is an anarchist cultural center run by a collective with close ties to the publishing group Autonomedia
Autonomedia
Autonomedia is one of the main North American publishers of radical theoretical works, especially in the anarchist tradition. For many years, it was linked with Semiotext, one of the major sources for English language translations of post-structuralist literature, especially in the 1980s...
."
"In the bohemia of downtown Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, the band - and crew - based practices of art rock
Art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
and super-8 film making thrived. The first artists' group to achieve prominence in New York was Colab (Collaborative Projects), which produced a show in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
in 1980. This exhibition was a groundswell of popularly accessible socially themed artworks held in an empty building that has housed an erotic massage parlor. Critics called it "punk art" -- "three cord art anyone can play." The South Bronx art space Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda
Fashion Moda is a cultural concept. As a museum of science, art, invention, technology and fantasy in its South Bronx location from 1978-1993 it combined aspects of a community arts centre and a worldwide progressive arts organization.-History:...
. participated in the Times Square Show, bringing in some of the new generation of graffiti artists who had been exhibiting in the Bronx as part of the hip-hop culture of writers, rappers, and break dance
Break Dance
Break Dance is a Commodore 64 computer game that relies on players making dancing moves that resemble the classic game Simon says.-Gameplay:...
rs. A forty-member democratically run membership group; Colab inspired other artists to form groups and mount huge shows in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
lofts, not to mention collaboration with the Washington Project for the Arts
Washington Project for the Arts
Washington Project for the Arts, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and aid of artists in the Washington, D.C. area.-History:...
, for the Ritz Hotel Project
Ritz Hotel Project, Washington, D.C.
-Précis:The Ritz Hotel Project was a collaboration between New York City's COLAB group and Washington, D.C.'s Washington Project for the Arts...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in 1983.
Members
Various artists who were associated with Colab, include:- Charlie AhearnCharlie Ahearn (director)Charlie Ahearn was born in 1951 in Binghamton, New York, and is a film director and creative cultural artist currently living in New York City. Although predominantly involved in film and video production, he is also known for his work as an author, freelance writer, and radio host...
- John Ahearn
- Liza Bear
- Scott Billingsley
- Andrea CallardAndrea CallardAndrea Callard was one of a group of artists residing in New York City.-Biography:Andrea Callard was born in Chicago in 1950 and grew up in Muncie, Indiana. She graduated from high school at Kingswood School Cranbrook in 1968, continued her education at Washington University's School of Fine Arts...
- Ellen Cooper
- Diego Cortez
- Mitch Corber
- Jody Culkin
- Debby Davis
- Eva DeCarlo
- Jane Dickson
- Orshi DrozdikOrshi DrozdikOrshi Drozdik is a Hungarian feminist artist, based in New York. Her work consists of series of installations exploring connected themes, sometimes over many years.-Biography:...
- Stefan EinsStefan EinsStefan Eins Born in Prague, Bohemia, grew up in Vienna and Gresten, Austria. He settled in New York City in 1967. Eins graduated from the University of Vienna with a degree in Theology and he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1964-1967. He does not distinguish between creating art...
- Peter FendPeter FendPeter Fend is an American Artist born in 1950. In 1980, he founded Offices and the Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation with Colen Fitzgibbon, Jenny Holzer, Peter Nadin, Richard Prince and Robin Winters, which was "a corporation invented for a group of artists"...
- Coleen Fitzgibbon
- Bobby G
- Matthew Geller
- Mike Glier
- Ilona Granet
- Julie Harrison
- John Hogan
- Jenny HolzerJenny HolzerJenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
- G. H. HovagimyanG. H. HovagimyanG. H. Hovagimyan is an experimental cross media, new media and performance artist who lives and works in New York City. He was born 1950 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In 1972, He received a B.F.A. from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and received an M.A. from New York...
- Becky Howland
- Lisa Kahane
- Christof Kohlhofer
- Fred Krughoff
- Justen Ladda
- Mary Lemley
- Joe Lewis
- Aline Mayer
- Michael McClard
- Dick Miller
- Eric Mitchell
- Alan W. Moore
- John D. Morton
- James Nares
- Joseph NechvatalJoseph NechvatalJoseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.-Life and work:Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago...
- Mic Neumann
- Tom OtternessTom OtternessTom Otterness is an American sculptor whose works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums in New York---most notably in Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City and in the 14th Street/8th Avenue subway station---and other cities around the world...
- Cara Perlman
- Virge Piersol
- Uli Rimkus
- Judy RifkaJudy RifkaJudy Rifka, an American artist, first emerged in the 1970s as a painter and video artist, and is associated with Colab, Tribeca, the Lower East Side arts scene of that period, and such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard, John Ahearn, Richard Mock, Ron Gorchov, Becky Howland, Keith...
- Walter Robinson
- Christy Rupp
- Jane Sherry
- Teri Slotkin
- Beatrice (Bebe) Smith
- Kiki SmithKiki SmithKiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
- Seton Smith
- Wolfgang StaehleWolfgang StaehleWolfgang Staehle is an early pioneer of net.art in the United States, known for his video streaming of the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.-Education:...
- Anton van Dalen
- Sophie VDT
- Tom Warren
- Robin Winters
External links
- A Show about Colab (and Related Activities) October 15 – November 30, 2011 at Printed Matter, Inc
- Review of "“A Show About Colab (and Related Activities)" at Printed Matter Inc by Colby Chamberlain in Artforum Magazine
- Colab related Art Film & Video listing
- "Book report" discussing Colab history and members
- Interview with Jenny Holzer with discussion of Colab
- Raphael Rubinstein, "When bad was good: the art scene of downtown Manhattan ca. 1974-1984 is resurrected in a show that originated in New York and is now in Pittsburgh" Art in America (June-July, 2006)
- "Colab Redux" 2008 art exhibition of Colab members at Brooke Alexander Editions, New York City
- Colab related Artists Cable Television listing (Potatoe Wolf)
- Colab at UbuWebUbuWebUbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.-Philosophy:...
- Colab Archive website