[Blake_Stimson,_Gregory_Sholette]_Collectivism_aft(z-lib

Artists’ Collectives Mostly in New York 199
from Hell) and the anarchist Black Mask (later the Motherfuckers). These
groups staged dramatic actions at cultural events, concerts, and political street
demonstrations. This radical activism was of a piece with the many symbolic
political actions during the late 1960s, like the American Indian Movement
(AIM) occupation of Alcatraz and the Statue of Liberty, the Yippie seizure
of the pirate ship in California Disneyland, and the Weatherman bombing
of the police memorial in Chicago.
Feminist collectivity was a continuous presence exerting pressure
on the mainstream. Feminists inspired, directed, and sustained collective
organization among progressive artists throughout the 1970s and into the
1980s although they and their issues were often sidelined. Ad Hoc Women
Artists and WAR (Women Artists in Revolution) were from around 1970 21
the angry activist face of radical feminist artists in New York, organizing for
a piece of the pie. The movement had been working collectively for years.
The consciousness-raising group, a key feminist organizing tool, was an adaptation
of the Chinese communist practice of “speaking our bitterness,” a discussion
intended to reveal the political nature of women’s personal problems.
These meetings could generate texts: the east coast Redstockings group regularly
published position papers and polemics, individually and collectively
authored.
FIGURE 7.3. Feminist art collective Carnival Knowledge posing with porn stars at the time of their
Franklin Furnace exhibition “Second Coming,” New York, 1983. Photograph by Dona Ann McAdams.