Overview

Collecting & Collectivity is a series of events organized by Professors Noah Simblist [SMU] and Charissa Terranova [UTD] to investigate the unique qualities and circumstances of the contemporary avant-garde. Upon first blush, the two words seem quite at odds. From art to memorabilia, “collecting” is rooted in the free market. People collect art for investment purposes or because of desire coupled with disposable income. By contrast, “collectivity” is community formed on the basis of shared ideology. Historically, it has been rooted in socialist and communist political movements. The historical avant-garde in the early twentieth-century was marked by the formation of a series of artistically and ideologically driven groupuscules – de Stijl, Constructivism, dada, Surrealism, et. al. Though each group bore a unique set of formal concerns within their art, all criticized capitalism and pledged allegiance to class revolution. In general, the historical avant-garde viewed “art” as praxis – making in the name of the social transformation of everyday life.

Most artists who make cutting-edge art today are complicit, to use a word of Johanna Drucker’s. They knowingly make art that goes with the market: their art bears no form of “resistance” to capitalism. Success means high value in the market and celebrity in a global network of art. In spite, sometimes because of, the triadic collusion between artist, artwork, and the market, art communities of varying scales and types continue to take form through published discourse, the university, galleries, museums, and an international circuit of biennials and art fairs.

The question begs: Do these communities qualify as “collectivities”? Do they show to us a new paradigm of “collectivity” in the twenty-first century? The events of Collecting & Collectivity seek to answer these questions.

Four primary events constitute the year-long program of Collecting & Collectivity: a seminar and symposium in fall 2007 and an exhibition and panel at CAA in the spring 2008. There will also be lectures by Johanna Drucker, Julie Ault, Walid Raad, and Sabrina Gschwandtner.

Sabrina Gschwandtner

Walid Raad