Oriol Fontdevila & LaFundició

Group Material: The People's Choice. Arroz con mango. East Thirteenth Street. New York. 1981

"From that year on Thirteenth Street, The People's Choice is the project that functioned most effectively for engaging questions about cultural values, and adressing questions of public [...]. The People's Choice was intended to interrogate the traditional museum collection model of what is culturally and simbolically valuable by posing a collection determined by people not usually identified or professionalized as cultural experts. It was not Group Material's intention to instrumentalize or attempt to sociogically trace or distinguish a group. The aim was to construct a particular notion of what constitutes a public display. As a process The People's Choice provided a concrete framework for working in the immediate neighborhood -a geographically and economically determined community- drawing on its resources, reflecting and providing something in return."

"These examples suggest models of exhibition practice that rely on collaborative process, and exhibition structures which rely on conceptual interweaving. They share decentralized spatial arrangements that encourage cross-referencing and catalyze meanings within themetized fields. They also combine various kinds of cultural production -artifacts, art, documentation, and mass-produced objects- in a single space. These examples should be understood as counter-positions to academic curatorial or exhibition-making practices which are centered around strictly defined art historical methods, linearity, master narratives, and upholding divisions between art and artifact, "high" and "low", practitioner and spectator. [...] In the eighties Group Material proposed that these social sites be discursive formations, and to some degree, function as models or forums for participation."

Julie AULT (2007): "Three Snapshots from the Eighties: On Group Material"; a Paul O'Neill: Curating Subjects. Open Editions. London. 2007