It’s true, art does have an enemy, and strangely enough it’s the system that promotes and sells it. Without artists without art, without the creative and inquiring minds that produce visual media to inspire, cajole, infuriate and enrage the public, the "art market" would collapse. Fortunately for critics, dealers, galleries, and all the unscrupulous intermediaries that both enable and disable art careers in a blink of an eye, we the artists are ten to the dozen. We’re coming out of the woodwork. If they can’t make a hefty cut on your piece, they’ll move to the next, if their audience don’t want to be challenged, they can dilute the message, they can source anything by anyone and call it art and few would dare question their motives.

Unfortunately for any emerging artist in the present day, these middle-men will for the most part continue to shift the emphasis as they see fit, and all in the name of profit. If they want to charge for exhibition space they will, although personally I’d say that particular practice makes most curators little more than shopkeepers. If they insist on bumping the price to the point that only the elite can purchase your work, they’ll most likely take a whopping great commission to seal the deal, which to me rings more of shyster of than proponent for the art establishment. So where do we go from here?

Collectivity. It’s the future I’m telling you, and indeed much of the past. The time is ripe for artists to come together, to join forces, and to beat the vultures of the arts at their own game. Did I mention that it’s already happening? Because it is, and then some…

I could bore you with the history of the artist collective or cooperative, the ecclesiastical, political and industrial roots of this self-empowering model of labour and production, but you’re probably better off reading a wiki on the subject. The truth is there have always been artist collectives, from sculpture co-ops in ancient Rome and Greece, throughout the history of most crafts there have been some form of fellowship, even totalitarian governments have encouraged the practice, although obviously as a means of subjugation rather than creative necessity. Even now you’ll find villages throughout Africa and India that form co-operatives in order to produce and sell more of their local arts. One could even consider most art movements as co-operative, such as Dadaism and Surrealism, and of course the formation of artist salons enabled the experimental avant garde to exhibit to a suspicious and sceptical public.

Post-Modernism has something to answer for when it comes to the downturn in the art collective, in the last few decades have borne out a ream of highly politicized, and sometimes rather dubious collectives-cum-movements, Ant Farm was fun but in all honesty it’s more suited to a sideshow at Burning Man than serious art criticism. There was Fluxus – a po-faced collective that began to fall apart after the death of its founder George Maciunas. There was Archigram, which had a habit of rehashing an old and rather tired Futurist perspective.  There were the Guerilla Girls, there’s the Cacophony Society, the site-specific group Luna Nera, and more recently Gelatin, but to be blunt, big isn’t always necessarily better.

The problem with many collectives has been an over zealousness for political statement combined with a devastating lack of organisation. But as I’ve mentioned, things have changed, and about time too. Post Modern artists (I can’t stand that term – someone create a new one please), don’t want to be restricted by a collective message, however worthy, each artist is an individual, with individual ideas, motives and goals. Each has their own process of working, and many will evolve through a series of different practices, styles, techniques and visual languages throughout their career. All that artists want is an opportunity to exhibit their work, sure they can collaborate if the timing and the company are perfect for the occasion, but art isn’t a democracy, it’s not even a movement, it’s simply a state of mind, one that induces the artist to produce objects beyond the mere reasoning of form and function.

But as I said, things are changing, and in a big way, I was contacted by a collective called ALF on Facebook, and for once in a long old while I’m actually excited. Take a look at this:-

Artist’s Liberation Front - this London-based artists’ collective gets straight to the crux of the matter. Forget intellectual debate in smoky rooms full of beardies supping organic bitter, ALF do one thing and one thing alone, they get the art out there, and proverbially stick two fingers up at all the greedy dealers who’ve stood in there way in the past whilst they do it and here’s how they do it.

ALF don’t charge for exhibition space ,they don’t charge commission, what they do do is approach landlords with empty retail units and convince them to open up a space, however temporarily in order to expose the public to the latest unknown but potentially rising stars residing in the furthest outer reaches of the art market. Their ethos is to snub the elite. Allowing the mainstream to own art at a fair price, enabling artists to sell at a realistic profit without being at the mercy of greedy dealers and galleries. Visit them now at artworkondon.com and join their group at Facebook.

I’ve searched around the web for other collectives with as impressive mission statement, but none seem to be all out gunning for the establishment like these guys. If you do know of any others out there in the UK and/or the world do let me know, I’ll create a list if I get enough contributions and we’ll show the world, the art market, the shyster dealers and curators out there that it really might be the end of their monopoly!

This post is tagged art careers, art establishment, artist collectives, curators, exhibition, exhibition space, George Maciunas, inquiring minds, Luna Nera, true art