Art Gangs: Protest & Counterculture in New York City by Alan W. Moore

[NOTE: The interview with Alan Moore was originally published in The Brooklyn Rail (click link below), on the occasion of the publication of his new book (click image above)]

[LINK]

[EXCERPT (from the Brooklyn Rail interview)]:

I thought that creative people in the U.S., especially academics, became excessively timid under eight years of Bush. They could no longer insist on anything. What I always tried to say to folks was “get crusty.” Insist on what you want, because what creative people want is what other folks need. In that sense, I believe in the vanguard idea. Now, with the Occupy movement, people are again in motion toward their dreams. That is so encouraging! So now I think I have less to say to Americans and more to listen to.

[From the Half Letter Press listing for Art Gangs]:

Artist and Art historian Alan Moore worked with the artists’ group Colab and helped start the cultural centre ABC No Rio. Meticulously researched from the small journals and alternative press of the time as well as artist’s archives and the author’s own personal experience, this book is a thorough, street-level, history of artists’ groups and collective activity by artists in New York from 1969 to 1985. Most of these groups avowed a political purpose, were informed by leftist political thought, idealized collective action, and used art to advocate for social change. Many of the forms of artists’ organization pioneered by these groups have become standard practice in today’s art world. Others continue to remain invisible to the mainstream. By making art that engaged with questions of social justice, and working to enact social change through art, these groups helped invent many of the new forms that appeared in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Worth it for the footnotes alone, this book tells the story of innumerable collectives, artists, alternative spaces and journals, including such landmarks as The Artworkers Coalition, The Guerilla Art Action Group, Art & Language NY, The Times Square Show, Colab, PADD, and Group Material.

Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture

By Gregory Sholette

Pluto Press (2011) - Paperback - 304 pages - ISBN 0745327524

Art is big business, with some artists able to command huge sums of money for their works, while the vast majority are ignored or dismissed by critics. This book shows that these marginalized artists, the "dark matter" of the art world, are essential to the survival of the mainstream and that they frequently organize in opposition to it. Gregory Sholette, a politically engaged artist, argues that imagination and creativity in the art world originate thrive in the non-commercial sector shut off from prestigious galleries and champagne receptions. This broader creative culture feeds the mainstream with new forms and styles that can be commodified and used to sustain the few artists admitted into the elite. This dependency, and the advent of inexpensive communication, audio and video technology, has allowed this "dark matter" of the alternative art world to increasingly subvert the mainstream and intervene politically as both new and old forms of non-capitalist, public art. This book is essential for anyone interested in interventionist art, collectivism, and the political economy of the art world.