Group Material


Group Material was a group of conceptual artists and an exhibition space, active from 1979 to 1996, which included Jenny Holzer, Julie Ault, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Félix González-Torres, Hans Haacke, and others as members and participants.
The group operated a gallery space in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where exhibitions such as 1981's The People's Choice took place. The People's Choice consisted of more than a hundred objects loaned from neighborhood residents, often accompanied by a personal story about the object. Later, the group moved to headquarters on 26th Street in Manhattan and created exhibitions and installations in a number of locations throughout the US and occasionally in Germany.
Group Material participated in the 1985 Whitney Biennial with their show Americana, which included appliances and pop music alongside historical art works.
The group used advertising space in a number of their works and exhibitions, including placing artworks as ads in newspapers, on billboards and buses, and on subway platforms. Notably, in 1988, the group created a project with the Public Art Fund called Inserts, which took the form of an advertising supplement to The New York Times. The supplements were distributed in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan. A copy of the supplements is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
The group's archive is held in the special collections of New York University.

Exhibitions

Chronological list of exhibitions and performances