Issue 22

Art in Unestablished Channels

Heresies Vol. 6, No. 2, 1987

The Issue 22 Collective 

Editorial Collective: Fran Baskin, Martha Burgess, Sarah Drury, Chris Heindl, Betti-Sue Hertz, Susan Hoenig, Carol Jacobsen, Robin Michals, Lise Prown, Lynn Wadsworth

Mother Collective: Emma Amos, Gail Bradney, Kathie Brown, Josely Carvalho, C. Palmer Fuller, Michele Godwin, Pennelope Goodfriend, Kathy Grove, Elizabeth Hess, Kay Kenny, Avis Land, Lucy R. Lippard, Robin Michals, Sabra Moore, Carrie Moyer, Linda Peer, Ellen Rumm, Faith Wilding

Staff: Kay Kenny, Gail Bradney, Andrea Lukas

Editorial Help: Gail Bradney, Kathie Brown, Thalia Doukas, Barbara Moulton

Design: Nancy Rosing

Typesetting: Kathie Brown, Morgan Gwenwald

Production: Fran Baskin, Molly Blieden, Kathie Brown, Katrina Browne, Karen Dolmanisth, Kathryn Gleason, Bendell Hydes, Esther Kaplan, Robin Michals, Una Sahey

From the Issue 22 Collective 

ART IN UNESTABLISHED CHANNELS

In the process of working on this issue, we were increasingly aware of the shifting parameters of our positions as professional artists grappling with complex notions of community. If “Community Art” has traditionally been perceived as clearly marked territory, we did not find this to be true. More characteristic in this collection is work by women who are actively defining community art in new ways.

Many artists have asserted their indifference to an art world founded on a market economy by doing work that engages a specific community. Well aware of artistic activity outside the mainstream, we were not always able to access the self-contained communities which nevertheless served as a motivating force for this collective.

While our individual differences were as great as the work which we received, our collective interests were often peculiarly similar. We found ourselves most drawn to work by artists who stepped out of bounds, pushing the limits both of the art object and of the communities that make and/or receive it. We kept up an ongoing discussion as to the nature of marginality in relation to a mainstream, but as we pursued this dichotomy, a multiplicity of artistic centers appeared. We engaged the issues of political, racial, economic and art world boundaries, yet rather than focus on being locked in, we have looked for work that created its own context, superseding the given spectrum of validation.

The work that we received lifted the confines of art viewing both geographically and demographically, taking its cues from the dumpsters of Vancouver, Canada, as well as the strip-mined hills of Pennsylvania. Collaborative pieces and individual projects—some modest, some visionary—propose to us new channels for artistic production. Collectively these artists have brought to our attention works by and for many diverse audiences, thereby revealing fresh motivations for making art.