Collaborative Projects

THE COLAB CONSPIRACY
by Walter Robinson



The statements of purpose extracted from members of the early '80s artists collective Collaborative Projects by Printed Matter curator Max Schuman for his exhibition at the Chelsea bookstore, the desultorily titled “A Show about Colab (and Related Activities),” Oct. 15-Nov. 30, 2011 -- printed out, they're on display against a silver wall in the shop's narrow hallway -- are pretty highfalutin, especially considering that Colab meetings (typically focused on allocating grant money for a wide variety of projects) were frequently acrimonious and almost universally considered to be pure torture.

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