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" Contrary to some strains of popular belief, collectivism is
artmaking not only with" many but for" many. For the historical
avant-garde— like the Dadaists or the Constructivists— it embodied
the revolutionary power of communal force, one that would, in the
future, alleviate the alienation of capitalist individualism. For
artists during the Cold War, it meant sharing an experience beyond
that of mass consumption, at a time when the communal utopias of
the recent past were, at best, dismissed as naï ve phantasmagorias
or, at worst, seen as having materialized in the form of
totalitarian regimes. And a few years ago, fueled by curatorial
interest, a trend emerged of group art practice as a kind of clubby
tribalism.
To understand the various forms of postwar collectivism as
historically determined phenomena and to articulate the
possibilities for contemporary collectivist art production is the
aim of "Collectivism after Modernism. "The essays assembled in this
anthology argue that to make truly collective art means to
reconsider the relation between art and public; examples from the
Situationist International and Group Material to Paper Tiger
Television and the Congolese collective Le Groupe Amos make the
point. To construct an art of shared experience means to go beyond
projecting what Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette call the “
imagined community” a collective has to be more than an ideal, and
more than communal craft; it has to be a truly social enterprise.
Not only does it use unconventional forms and media to communicate
the issues and experiences usually excluded from artistic
representation, but it gives voice to a multiplicity
ofperspectives. At its best it relies on the participation of the
audience to actively contribute to the work, carrying forth the
dialogue it inspires." — "BOMB"
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