Books, Newspapers, Magazines & Periodicals
- Chronicle Books, 1997: 'Jamming the Media' by Gareth Branwyn (pdf/1.6MB)
- Sculpture, Sept. 1997: 'Artist–Organized Outdoor Sculpture Exhibitions' by Jane Ingram Allen
- Chicago Reader, Aug, 22, 1997: 'Art People: Brett Blooms' special dispensations' by Mark Swartz
- Atelier, number 23 1996: 'Newyorská skupina Art Attack v Poprad' by Katarine Rusnáková
- Art Papers, Nov./Dec. 1995: 'Art Attack: Vessel' by Glenn Harper
- The Washington Post, Aug. 6, 1995: 'Art Attack Pays a House Call' by Benjamin Forgey (pdf/1.9MB)
- The Arlington Journal, Jul. 13, 1995: 'House becomes canvas for artists' by Gigi Whitley
- The Washington Post, Jul. 3, 1995: 'Art Attack Strikes Again' by Michael O'Sullivan
- The Washington City Paper, Jul. 8, 1994: 'Going Public' by Martha McWilliams (pdf/1.4MB)
- OÖ Krone, Jun. 4, 1995: 'Kuriositäten & "Haus–Geburten" '
- Täglich Alles, Apr. 19, 1995: 'Linz: Haus Geburt'
- Standard, Apr. 14, 1995: 'Die Kunsthalle als Campingplatz' by Andreas Stockinger
- OÖ Nachrichten, Kultur Film Fersehen, Apr. 11, 1995: 'Abbruch–Kunst'
- Standard – Watchlist, Apr. 10, 1995: 'Facettenreich'
- Standard – Watchlist, Apr. 7, 1995: 'Schutt–Veredelung'
- OÖ Kulturbericht, 49. Jhg., Apr. 1995: 'Architektur–Projekt und Ausstellung im Offenen Kulturhaus'
- Architektur & Bau Forum, Nr. 174/1995: 'Architektur zwischen Idee und Wirklichkeit'
- OÖ Nachrichten, Kultur Film Fersehen, Mar. 28, 1995: 'Katzenhaus und Intrapolis' by Reinhold Tauber
- Standard – Watchlist, Mar. 28, 1995: 'OberÖsterreich – Facettenreich'
- The Alexandria Journal, Jun. 21, 1994: 'A house becomes ... a museum' by Martin Kaufmann
- The Washington Post, Jun. 18, 1994: 'The House That Art Unbuilt' by Benjamin Forgey (pdf/1.1MB)
- The Washington Post, Jun. 13, 1994: 'Farmhouse Under (Art) Attack' by Eric Brace
- The Northern Virginia Sun Weekly, Jun. 9, 1994: 'Artists Turning Bungalow Into a Temporary Sculpture' by John Lavey
- The Improper Bostonian, Jun. 8–21, 1994: 'Public Failure' by Charles Giuliano
- The Tab, May 17, 1994: 'ICA looks at public art' by M. Darsie Alexander
- The Boston Phoenix, May 13, 1994: 'No Intervention' by Cate McQuaid
- The Boston Herald, Apr. 29, 1994: 'In–your–face art loses in translation' by Mary Sherman
- The Tab, Apr. 29, 1994: 'ICA highlights public art' by Kate Schultz
- The Boston Globe, Apr. 27, 1994: 'At ICA: art that makes a public exhibition of itself' by Christine Temin
- The Boston Globe, Apr., 1994: 'ICA brings public art out in the open' by Christine Temin
- Art & Antiques, Feb. 1994: 'East Meets West in Arts Exchange' by Rachel Weiss
- Art Papers, Jan./Feb. 1994: 'Art Attack, Interview – Alberto Gaitán & Lynn McCary' by Anne Barclay Morgan (pdf/1.6MB)
- The New York Times, Jul. 31, 1992: 'Sculpture Sculpture Everywhere' by Michael Kimmelman (pdf/848MB)
- Reports 2/3, Jan. 1992: 'The Lamb Lies Down In Marseille' by Peter Lang
- Kunstforum International, Nov./Dec. 1991: 'Art Attack Kunstlergruppen' by Florian Rötzer
- The Sunday Oregonian, Apr. 28, 1991: 'Art Poverty' by Randy Cragg
- Art Papers, Jul./Aug. 1990: 'International Festival of Group Art, Abattoirs 89' by Anne Barclay Morgan
- Washington City Paper, Jun. 29, 1990: 'Attack's Tactics' a response to 'The Urge To Merge' by Lynn McCrary & Alberto Gaitán (pdf/652KB)
- Washington City Paper, Jun. 8–14, 1990: 'The Urge To Merge' by Jane Addams Allen (pdf/1.6MB)
- ARTnews, May 1989: 'Radical Surgery' by Sam Staggs
- Contemporanea, Jun. 1989: 'Washington' by Patrick Finnegan (pdf/20MB)
- Art Papers, May/Jun. 1989: 'Art Attack: 427 Massachusetts Avenue NW' by Daniel Barbiero (pdf/6.2MB)
- The Washington Post, Jan. 9, 1989: 'Making A Wreck of Art' by Kara Swisher (pdf/1MB)
- Washington City Paper, Jan. 6–12, 1989: 'Art Attack' Tom McGuire (pdf/1.4MB)
- SOMA Magazine, ninth issue 1989: 'Ephemeral Markings' by Patrick Finnegan (pdf/5.4MB)
- The Washington Post, Nov. 28, 1988: 'Old Northwest Block Turned Inside Out' by Linda Wheeler
- A Journal Of Art, Jul. 1988: 'Art Attack' by Camille Ward
- The Evening Sun, Jun. 30, 1988: 'New M.A.P. Reopens With a Bang' by Steve Purchase
- Baltimore Sun, Jun. 24, 1988: 'Imagination Builds and Rebuilds at M.A.P.' by John Dorsey
- New Art Examiner, May 1988: 'Art Attack' by Grant Kester (pdf/808KB)
- The Washington Post Magazine, Jan. 10, 1988: 'The Artists Are Coming, The Artists Are Coming' by Karina Porcelli
- Museum and Arts Washington, Sept./Oct. 1987: 'News and Notes Art Attack' (pdf/1.1MB)
- Art, Das Kunstmagazin, Aug. 1987: 'Kunst–Sommer In Kassel' by Dirk Schwarze
- Museum and Arts Washington, May/Jun. 1987: 'Washington Artists Honored Elsewhere'
- The Washington Post, Nov. 9, 1986: 'Art Attack Bemuses MacArthur Boulevard' by Sue Anne Pressley
- The Northwest Current, Nov. 6–19, 1986: 'Art Attack on MacArthur Boulevard, D.C.'
- The Washington Afro–American, Sept. 28, 1985: 'Drug Traffic Disrupted; Art Group Erects Anti–War Exhibit' by Ronald R. Hanna
- The Washington Post, Sept. 18, 1985: 'Memorial; With A Message' by David Saltman
- The Washington Post, Jun. 9, 1984: 'WPA's Welcome Site' by Benjamin Forgey
- The Washington Post, Weekend, Jun. 8, 1984: 'WPA Gives Our Town A Serious Art Attack' by Anne H. Oman
- The Washington Post, Jun. 6, 1984: 'Arts Beat' by Joe Brown
- The Washington Post, Apr. 19, 1984: 'Art Attack's Main Artery' by Paul Richard
Kunstforum International, Nov./Dec. 1991: 'Art Attack Kunstlergruppen' by Florian Rötzer
With the notable exception of those working in the performing arts, the work of the Artist in the United States of America has generally been understood as a solitary activity. Though great leaps of intuition have been achieved by individuals working in one medium, group art should ideally yield ideas not attainable in a more ideocentric environment.
Art Attack is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary, process-oriented artist group. We began over a decade ago as an open group of urban artists installing anonymous, unauthorized work in public places. Using found and expendable materials, installations were quickly put together and left to the whims of weather and authorities. From the start the idea was to engage the public by placing something new in their familiar environment. Developing a compelling form of expression has continued to be a part of the group's conceptual underpinning. We share opinions on the shortcomings of individual work's ability to make statements as broad as those we have achieved collaboratively.
Cultivating the collaboration led to a secondary phase in our growth. Over ten years we evolved to consist of a more organized and committed nucleus of four artists. Occasional associates were inducted as dictated by the needs of each project. Installations were better planned, permits were retained for public sites, and construction occurred in the open. The work, though still using found materials, began to include more architectural components. Buildings were sought as sites and, depending upon their status of occupancy, were either added-onto and/or subtracted from. The impetus for working this way was to challenge the group to work with what was at hand. Ironically, over time we developed a technique of collaboration that drove each of us toward specialization. We began to lean on each other's specialties to a greater extent. The contrast within the group, which contained two visual artists, Lynn McCary (graphic design) and Evan Hughes (design/sculpture), a writer/performer, Jared Louche (nee Hendrickson), and a sound artist, Alberto Gait‡n, may have encouraged this polarization. We think that this entropic effect may have been slower had there been a greater similarity between our specialties. Upon noticing this shift we decided to refocus on our endeavor.
Lately, we have undertaken to return to a more open way of working; which allows for flexibility of media and of individual levels of participation. The desire to maintain a robust creative environment balanced against the need to systematize and simplify collaboration may perpetuate this fluctuation. These shifts are not viewed as destructive. Art Attack believes that because of its adaptability, the collaborative model addresses problems of survival currently facing many U.S. artists. However, collaboration is not the most comfortable mode of working. In looking for the attributes of collaboration, we try to examine the constraints and the freedoms offered by the intra-group environment. Obviously, the division of labor makes possible a level of flexibility unavailable to an individual artist. But a group has its own rigid domains. These have presented themselves as burdensome to a number of our past associates. The potentially constant incursion into each other's medium forces the vigorous defense of ideas. It is this interaction that produces our most rewarding and our most painful revelations.
Art Attack's work is composed of any combination of visual, aural, and performance elements. We at times elect to experiment outside of our individual media. The ability to operate under a group identity provides each of us with the freedom to consider additional alternatives for expression. The elements within the group inform and modulate each other throughout the creative process, fostering the development of novel ideas.
Our ideal is to achieve the purest possible form of collaboration; which fuses several discrete ideas into one. The creative process takes on the form of debate, where propositions are put forth and passed or defeated. The resulting distillation of our attitudes and insights on a project become our creation. This then rejects the notion of exhibiting together the independent work of several artists under the banner of collaboration. Though a tacit political statement could emerge from this mode of working, Art Attack has no set political agenda and exists through intuition, not premeditated doctrine.
Our early works were produced with only a vague notion of the common ground which lies at the intersection of our various points of view. As we came to think it important to examine the group's motivations, we found that attempts to define in words a group motive, aside from that of wanting to make broader work, was elusive. Since members are forced through interaction to exploit the advantages of working collaboratively, the understanding of these motives is at an instinctive level. Whatever the motive(s), our activities are ruled more immediately by the inter-personal and logistical dynamics of maintaining a close collaboration.
Our manner of working encourages at many levels an open forum for ideas and opinions. Art Attack works in public places to include the general public in our process. We regard exposure to and interaction with the public as challenging and motivating. We find that feedback during the creative process helps us to better communicate our ideas to those that regard them as foreign. The nature of this feedback broadens the collaborative principle and furthers the site-specific intention of our work.
The nature of invention is often to propose new contexts for existing concepts. This phenomenon presents itself in our work at many levels. Since our raw materials are often found or appropriated from other uses, they are thus presented outside their usual context. References to the malleability and transience of culture form the bulk of our installations' subject matter. We realize that the placement of work into a public context brings with it the potential for its misinterpretation. Yet this is the same fate suffered by any new idea at its inception.
It is paradoxical that though we contend to dislocate cultural elements and represent society as a transforming entity, our work is often bound to a place and a time. But, it being in that way bound results in freeing us from some of the customary ways of artistic endeavor. Because of the situationspecific and often indefinite life span of the work, it is seldom suited (nor designed) for sale. The resulting disengagement from the commercial market is emancipating. Additionally, our extemporaneous approach is liberating; as we work using a very flexible framework.
Through our ways and our work, Art Attack addresses the nature of cultural, inter- and intrapersonal flux. The environment we work in changes us as a group. By nature, we examine change and we learn to notice and exercise the abilities to effect change. The creative process then becomes interactive with the processes of site research and interpretation, materials and funding acquisition, construction, and installation.
Exhibition Catalogs
- Parallel, 1996 Tatranská Galéria, Poprad, Slovakia
- Haus–Geburt & Art Attack Das Gefálle (Gradient), 1995 Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austria
- Trans Europe Festival D'Art De Groupe, 1993 Berlin, Germany; Marseille, France; Barcelona, Spain
- Troisieme International Festival D'Art De Groupe, 1991 Marseille, France
- Deuxieme International Festival D'Art De Groupe, 1989 Marseille, France
- Künstlergruppen Zeigen Gruppenkunstwerke 1987 Kassel, 1987 Kassel, Germany
- Presse K–18 Gruppenkunstwerke, Jun.13–Sept. 10, 1987
Television and Video Documentaries
- Slovakia Today, Group Art Attack, Jun. 24,1996 produced and directed by Slovak Television (STV), Bratislava, Slovakia
- Really Cool Building Stuff, 1996 produced and directed by National Association of Homebuilders Media
Communications/Public Affairs, Washington, DC - NBC Evening News, Friday Jul. 21, 1995
Coverage of Vessel produced by WRC/NBC News, Washington, DC - Gradient, 1995 produced and directed by Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austria
- USIA, Coverage of Dominion Dum, Jul. 1994, international distribution via satellite
- Dum Na Budánkách, 1993 produced and directed by Art Attack International, Inc.
- 2:1 McCarren Park Pool Project, 1992 produced and directed by Art Attack International, Inc. (video/10:32)
- The International Phenomenon of Group Art, 1990 produced and directed by RAMM Productions (video/27:37)
- 427 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, 1989 produced and directed by Robert Preissler (video/3:26)
- NBC Evening News, Sunday Jan. 8, 1989
Coverage of 427 Massachusetts Avenue, NW produced by NBC News, Washington, DC
2:1 McCarren Park Pool Project, 1992 produced and directed by Art Attack International, Inc.
Art Attack International - 2 : 1 McCarren Pool / Karl Marx Hof - 1992, Brooklyn, NY, USA from Art Attack International on Vimeo.
The International Phenomenon of Group Art, 1990 produced and directed by RAMM Productions
Art Attack International - The International Phenomenon of Group Art - Abattoirs 1989 Documentary - Anne Barclay Morgan from Art Attack International on Vimeo.
427 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, 1989 produced and directed by Robert Preissler
Art Attack International - 427 Mass Ave. - 1988/89, Washington, DC, USA - Robert Preissler from Art Attack International on Vimeo.
Radio Documentaries
- Flash Radio, coverage of Parallel, Jun. 28. 1996 (Slovakia)
- Slovak Radio, coverage of Parallel, Jun. 25, 1996 (Slovakia)
- Radio Tatry, interview with Lynn McCary on Art Attack and Parallel, Jun. 14, 1996 (Slovakia)
- Voice of America, coverage of Dominion Dum, Jun. 29, 1994, by Susan Logue
- National Public Radio, coverage of Dominion Dum, Aug. 4, 1994, All Things Considered by Dean Olsher
