Collecting thoughts about collectives

Holland Cotter's The Collective Conscious in Sunday's New York Times is about the increasing visibility of art collectives, which have become a major theme of the 2006 Whitney Biennial. I can't resist posting the opening here:

Contemporary art is a multibillion-dollar global industry. But why does such a big deal look so small, so slight, with its bland paintings, self-regarding videos, artful tchotchkes and shoppable M.F.A. artists-to-watch? There has to be another way to go, an alternative to a used-up "alternative." By far the most interesting option ... is the work of miniature subcultures known as collectives.

I mention the article because it made a passing reference to the Lebanese artist Walid Raad and his so-called Atlas Group (see my February 28 post "Chronicling the car bombs of Lebanon" and Jerry Saltz's take in the Village Voice). Raad refers to the Atlas Group as a foundation, an organizing principle, and an archive - and in that sense, it fits Cotter's definition of collectives that "stretch conventional definitions of art and artist ... into the realm of activist politics, scientific experimentation and historical reclamation."

In Raad's case, I tend to think that the genesis must have been fairly simple: Isn't it easier, when collecting data from government sources, to identify yourself as part of a group - particularly one with such a benign name and no identifiable religious association? I wish I had asked him.