The idea of art often conjures up an image of solitary work. Clichés of the lone artist in their studio, alternatively struck by inspiration or stewing in melancholy occupy art history. While this archetype may suit processes that require periods of intense focus, like writing and painting, it’s also true that there are many kinds of creative work, like music and performance, where collaboration is built-in. In visual arts it’s also true that some exchanges may go uncredited; the conversation between artist and curator, or the back-and-forth of writer and editor. Working within an artist collective, a structure of group-work prevalent from the 20th century to the contemporary art world, is one way of expanding from these models of practice; foregrounding exchange and shared decision-making within the creative process.
What is an artist collective?
An artist collective is generally a group of artists who make work or organize together. There is no single model of an artist collective – some artist collectives take on a shared name, while others highlight the names of individual members. Collectives might assemble to pursue shared artistic interests, but are also often founded to address social issues, or share resources, within a DIY infrastructure, for the continuation of artistic practice. Artist collectives can be formed to create project-based work, where the artist members also maintain individual practices outside of their collective. In some collectives, memberships within the group change over time; founding members leave while others join after the establishment of the group. Some artist collectives, including high-profile examples of recent history, are also long-term collaborations that become paramount in each artist’s profile and legacy.
Collective practice comes with benefits, but also its own challenges. Working with other people often means more administrative work, along with the potential for disagreement, differences in communication style and ego clashes. So, why trade the freedom of individual decisionmaking for group dynamics and email threads? The following examples of artist collectives answer this question.
Why join an artist collective:
For Money, Fame, and Glamour – General Idea
Legendary in profile and wide-reaching in influence, General Idea was a collective in operation between 1969-1994 made up of the member artists Felix Partz, Jorge Jontal, and AA Bronson. Known for their distinctive tongue-in-cheek humor and parodic takes on mass media, General Idea’s work includes performance, video, installation, and mail art. Emerging from the counterculture movement of the 1960s, these themes heavily influence General Idea’s early work, later coming to be associated with activist art made in response to the AIDS crisis during the 1980s and 1990s. Two of General Idea’s members, Felix Partz and Jorge Jontal, died of AIDS related illnesses in 1994. One of their most iconic works, Imagevirus (1989-91), even anticipated the phenomenon of the ‘viral image’. The repeating square block of Imagevirus modeled itself after Robert Indiana’s Love (1967) design, replacing the letters ‘LOVE’ with ‘AIDS’ and was circulated as a visual takeover of public space. Imagevirus occupied many spaces outside of the gallery, often (literally) wallpaper-ing the surfaces, and was notably reproduced on the Spectacolor image board in Times Square. (Source: National Gallery of Canada.)
Never one to downplay their own ambitions, the group once described their motivations for forming a collective, stating: “We wanted to be rich, we wanted to be famous, we wanted to be glamorous, we wanted to be artists. And we knew that if we were famous, if we were glamorous, we could say, ‘we are artists,’ and we would be.” (source: CBC.) General Idea continues to be a model for artists working in collectives, showing that lived experience, ambition and drive can be a strong unifying force.
To Demand Accountability – Guerilla Girls
The artist collective The Guerilla Girls, self-described as “The Conscience of the Art World” is known for subverting public advertising space in their work and activism. Founded in 1985, the Guerilla Girls are an anonymous collective of feminist artists, identified by iconic dress sense, which always includes a face-concealing gorilla mask, and famous for disrupting museum spaces. Their ongoing practice addresses gender inequality in the art world through an intersectional lens (source: Guerilla Girls website.)
Engaging audiences and institutions through provocation, one of their best-known works is a banner image that asks, ‘Do Women Have to get naked to get into the Met. Museum’? Appropriating the image of a nude woman from Ingres’ Neoclassical painting La Grande Odalisque (1814), the group substituted the model’s head with the Guerilla’s Girls’ signature gorilla mask, which stares menacingly at the viewer. Next to the figure, the poster lists statistics gathered by the Guerilla Girls about the number of women artists represented in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, contrasting these numbers with the percentage of displayed works which depict female bodies. Originally designed for a billboard space, this banner image famously ran as an advertisement on New York City buses. While the banner project first appeared in 1989, it has also been re-issued in 2005 and 2012, each time with a re-count of its statistics. The Guerrilla Girls’ longevity shows that a strong sense of social justice can bring together like-minds in action, as a collective in the pursuit of a cause.
To Come Together in the Midst of Isolation – Array Collective
Outside of these storied groups, artist collectives continue to circulate in contemporary art, and to mobilize on social concerns internationally. Notably, in 2015 the artist collective BGL represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. As a way to emphasize the urgency of collaborative work that championed systemic change during a period of upheaval in 2021’s pandemic lockdowns, the Turner Prize jury opted to nominate all artist collectives on the award’s shortlist. In the press release for the announcement of the 2021 Shortlist, the Turner prize noted that the nominees “…reflect[ed] the solidarity and community in response to the pandemic.” (source: Tate Britain). Out of 5 collectives that were nominated for the award, the 11-person-strong Array Collective came away with the £25,000 prize.
Array Collective’s winning installation, The Druthaib’s Ball (2021), echoed the social nature of their practice, and centered the act of gathering. The installation recreated a síbín, also known as an illicit bar, which was furnished with ephemera that referred to the group’s activism. Based in Northern Ireland, Array’s activism responds to the political context of the Irish Sectarian divide, where historic divisions between Catholics and Protestants lead to segregation based on religious differences. Notably, this division was at the heart of The Troubles in Northern Ireland during the second half of the 20th century, and tensions persist. Past and present work by Array Collective quotes pre-Christian mythologies to call back to a shared belief system in their region, and the group is also outspoken about access to abortion and the rights of queer people. Addressing these rifts, The Druhaib’s Ball is infused with a feeling of warmth and welcome. When asked about the choice to recreate a bar as their project, one of Array’s members quipped, “[w]here would you rather be, an art gallery or a pub?” (source: the Guardian.) The lessons of the pandemic are useful to artists in practical ways as well, as we can reflect on how the broader culture approaches working and community building. There are opportunities for collectives to occupy digital space and gather using remote platforms.
To Think With Four Brains, and Eight Hands – Mataaho Collective
Beyond Array Collective’s success with the Turner prize, collective work has continued to receive international attention and recognition. This past summer, Mataaho Collective from Aotearoa (New Zealand), won the Golden Lion award at the 2024 Venice Biennale. Consisting of 4 group members of Māori descent, (Erena Arapere-Baker, Sarah Hudson, Bridget Reweti, and Dr. Terri Te Tau), this collective describes their way of working as coming from a ‘single authorship’, with a ‘four-brain, eight-hand approach.’
The collective’s work often takes the form of large-scale textiles. Their work shown in Venice, Takapau, was a woven installation initially presented at Te Papa Tongarewa (The Museum of New Zealand), where Mataaho’s members were able to access and study textiles made by makers with shared Māori ancestry. The woven patterns within Takapau echoed the structures and designs from these selected references, which the group had to mentally deconstruct and prototype before creating the eventual large-scale work. Mataaho Collective’s engagement with traditional weavings also brings up generational teachings inherent to craft practices, and contemporary discourses surrounding the reclamation of Indigenous knowledge. While the group engaged with traditional weaving in early stages, the final work played with convention by being woven from fluorescent trucking straps, nodding to the group’s working class history (source: the Guardian.) Mataaho Collective expands the framework of collaboration to overtly include past generations of makers, showing that continuing traditions and sharing skills can be both concept and purpose.
For Skill-Sharing, Dialogue, and Peer Support
As with the Mataaho Collective, aside from a means to pursue shared interests and work creatively as a group, collectives present the practical benefit of sharing skills and resources, and creating opportunities for group members. Array Collective maintains a shared studio where some of its members hold studio space in Belfast, and General Idea was also instrumental in creating infrastructure within the Toronto arts community. Art Metropole, an artist-run space founded by General Idea, continues to support the work of other artists, while preserving the legacy of the collective.
For artists who may be new to working in collectives, there is the added benefit of sharing admin work between group members based on strengths, but also of joining forces to reflect back to each other the importance of keeping going with your work. It’s much easier to write the grant proposal when you can brainstorm with others, and working with friends can also help answer the dreaded ‘why am I doing this’ question. While working in an art collective requires more communication and compromise, collective members are often rewarded for their efforts with skillsharing, peer support, and occasionally, the joy of hanging out.
