Collective Task, founded in 2006, is an international group of artists and poets with over 30 participants. Our premise is simple: on the first day of each month a member of the collective assigns a task for the other members to complete within the month. These monthly responses appear ongoing on our website. In addition to the website, we have published several volumes of our task responses.
In 2012, Collective Task performed at MoMA. The performances were mostly text-based, photography, and video. In June 2014, the collective performed, similarly, at the Berlin Poetry Festival. In December 2016 Collective Task celebrated its 10th anniversary and a new publication with a performance at 67 Ludlow Gallery in New York City. In 2017, we facilitated a workshop version of Collective Task at the art academy in Baghdad. And recently, in 2021, our 15th year, Collective Task is branching out to develop collective text and art projects beyond our monthly “task” responses.
title image: cycle 5 task 06, Erica Baum, Post-Body
April / May task by Ed Steck
Topic: Flattening
Prompt: Record a 5-15 second long audio piece.
Send audio piece to:
edward [dot] p [dot] steck [at] gmail [dot] com
Supplemental: Include a piece of text or visual or other.
Purpose: Sound will be edited together in collective transmissions or dispersed haphazardly in single transmissions to continue a collective thread through a one-night only Collective Task radio show hosted by Ed Steck. The radio show will include music I listen to, as well.
Our collective task member Erica Baum has generously made a special limited edition archival print as a fundraiser for Collective Task and Inscription: the Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History. Erica has a connection to both of these endeavors and, as a fundraising gesture, has offered five prints to each – overall, an edition of ten, each accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Because this is a fundraiser, Erica’s Gallery, Bureau in New York City, has generously allowed these limited prints to be made available at a discounted rate. All proceeds will go directly to Inscription and Collective Task for future projects and publications.
Erica Baum, Book Return, 2021
ht.10″ x w. 7.5″ archival pigment print
$1200
Limited edition of 10 with two artist’s proofs.
The price of the print will include postage and packing. To order a print, or for further information, please email: rmf1 [at] nyu [dot] edu
New York artist Erica Baum is well known for her varied photographic series capturing text and image in found printed material, from paperback books to library indexes and most recently sewing patterns. She received her MFA from Yale University in 1994 and her BA in Anthropology from Barnard, Columbia University in 1984. Her work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; MAMCO, Geneva; Albright=Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; SFMoMA, San Francisco; Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; FRAC Ile de France, Paris; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Publications include Dog Ear 2011, second printing 2016 Ugly Duckling Presse, and Erica Baum, The Naked Eye, 2015 Crèvecoeur/oe Paris & Bureau New York.