In this interview, artist Julie Ault, cofounder of Group Material, active from 1979-1996 in New York and internationally, speaks of her experience leading a master class with non-profit cultural workers in a day long reflection on alternative art spaces. Group Material is remembered as a not-for-profit organization that emphasized collaborative and socially engaged artistic practices. Drawing from her lived experience as a participant, and her later role as the ad hoc historian for the group as editor of Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material (2010). She spoke about the book as a form of exhibition space and the complexities of archiving and historicizing projects that evolved though multiple voices. Although there are differences between New York and Montréal artist-run culture, Ault brought her experiences to bear upon the local situation by speaking to shared acts of publishing, making projects, and the challenge posed by collective voices to the reductive archival principle of provenance.
This initiative of Felicity Tayler was supported by Skol, in collaboration with the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery and was partially financed by Emploi Québec, via the Comité de formation continue Arts et culture de l’Île de Montréal, managed by the RCAAQ’s coaching program.
Read Felicity Tayler’s synopsis of the master class here (PDF)
facebook
twitter