Group_Material
Group Material was a group of conceptual artists and an exhibition space,[1] active from 1979 to 1996,[2] which included Jenny Holzer, Julie Ault,[3] Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Félix González-Torres, Hans Haacke, and others as members and participants.[4]
The group operated a gallery space in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where exhibitions such as 1981's The People's Choice (Arroz con Mango) took place.[1] The People's Choice consisted of more than a hundred objects loaned from neighborhood residents, often accompanied by a personal story about the object.[1] Later, the group moved to headquarters on 26th Street in Manhattan and created exhibitions and installations in a number of locations throughout the US and occasionally in Germany.[5]
Group Material participated in the 1985 Whitney Biennial with their show Americana, which included appliances and pop music alongside historical artworks.[1]
Group Material also had an active program of exhibitions/installations hosted by other institutions. Notably, from September 1988 through January 1989, Group Material organized a series of four installations with accompanying "town meetings" at the Dia Art Foundation in New York, NY. The series of installations was entitled Democracy with the four sub-themes of Education, Politics and Election, Cultural Participation and AIDS and Democracy: A Case Study. Each of the town meetings consisted of a presentation of information on that particular installation followed by an open forum where visitors participated in discussions of relevant questions posed by Group Material.[6]
The group used advertising space in a number of their works and exhibitions, including placing artworks as ads in newspapers, on billboards and buses, and on subway platforms.[5] Notably, in 1988, the group created a project with the Public Art Fund called Inserts, which took the form of an advertising supplement to The New York Times. The supplements were distributed in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan.[7] A copy of the supplements is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.[4]
The group's archive is held in the special collections of New York University.[5]