The long rolling crescendo of Art Worker comes in Alan W. Moore’s discussion of the expansive art scene around Collaborative Projects (Colab) that had its heyday from 1977 to the mid-1980s. Colab, situated in New York’s downtown art scene, was a collective that engaged in provocative anti-curation and television production in efforts to bridge boundaries between art and the wider world. Moore’s accounting makes this a very personal story. He allows us alongside him and his friends and comrades as they make things that will eventually be called “historical” – the Real Estate Show, the Times Square Show – exhibitions Colab produced that were key events for some art history. Moore entangles them within an expansive linear narrative that starts with summers of love spent tramping in Europe and days of wonder doing radical cultural programming for the University of California.
About Alan W. Moore
Alan W. Moore was a critic, an organizer, a video artist and a typist in the subaltern NYC artworld during the last years of the 20th century. He organized the Real Estate Show and ABC No Rio for Colab, and participated in the Times Square Show in 1980. Working for the East Village Eye, Moore had a ringside seat at the downtown New York art show. In 2000 he took a PhD in art history, and published articles and a book on artists’ collectives. In colorful accessible language, this memoir runs over those years, with fully-sourced reflections on the epochal changes they wrought.
images from Inga books
The long rolling crescendo of Art Worker comes in Alan W. Moore’s discussion of the expansive art scene around Collaborative Projects (Colab) that had its heyday from 1977 to the mid-1980s. Colab, situated in New York’s downtown art scene, was a collective that engaged in provocative anti-curation and television production in efforts to bridge boundaries between art and the wider world. Moore’s accounting makes this a very personal story. He allows us alongside him and his friends and comrades as they make things that will eventually be called “historical” – the Real Estate Show, the Times Square Show – exhibitions Colab produced that were key events for some art history. Moore entangles them within an expansive linear narrative that starts with summers of love spent tramping in Europe and days of wonder doing radical cultural programming for the University of California.
About Alan W. Moore
Alan W. Moore was a critic, an organizer, a video artist and a typist in the subaltern NYC artworld during the last years of the 20th century. He organized the Real Estate Show and ABC No Rio for Colab, and participated in the Times Square Show in 1980. Working for the East Village Eye, Moore had a ringside seat at the downtown New York art show. In 2000 he took a PhD in art history, and published articles and a book on artists’ collectives. In colorful accessible language, this memoir runs over those years, with fully-sourced reflections on the epochal changes they wrought.
images from Inga books
