group material is a New York-based artists collaborative that has produced over fifty exhibitions and public projects exploring relationships between politics and aesthetics.

With exhibitions that combined artifacts such as magazine ads, and other found objects from popular culture with recognized art objects, Group Material created an ambitious mix. From conceptual art of the 1970's, a self-consciousness of exhibitions as conduits inseparable from supporting economic and institutional structures, was a revelation that enabled Group Material to see the totality of the flow of information in an exhibition as communication. If art could not be understood apart from its context, then the addition of "non-art" elements to augment the communicated message would make the cultural connectedness of art explicit. The visual continuity associated with personal artistic styles was as irrelevant to such an approach as the political content was unavoidable.

As Group Material's activity progressed, their focus shifted from a critique of exhibition practice and the "reclaiming of public space" to the content of the message. Early thematic and conceptual shows such as 'Alienation' and 'Consumption: Metaphor, Pastime, Necessity', were followed by installations more focused on specific issues such as Latin American right-wing militarism, education, and AIDS. The various authoring and presentation strategies they employed were directed toward getting the political "material" across.

The preeminence of communicating information in Group Material's art blurred the division between conceiving a work and its dissemination to an audience. Beyond the basic dilution of authorship in collaboration, the activities of Group Material have moved the idea of art from isolated models of refinement to a self-consciously political and cultural approach to communication. As the interface between subject matter and society, presentation space was adopted as a significant artistic medium, removing the distinction between artists and curators. Moreover, the status of presentation space itself as a standard of access to information was opened beyond the museum and gallery to engage the public through storefronts, talks, town meetings, newspaper ads, magazines, bus posters, etc.