Mobius Artists Group
Encyclopedia
The Mobius Artists Group is an interdisciplinary group of artists, founded in 1977 by Marilyn Arsem in Boston
, Massachusetts
as Mobius Theater. It is known for incorporating a wide range of visual, performing and media arts into live performance
, video
, installation
and intermedia
works. The members of the group create projects individually and in collaboration with members of the group and other artists. Mobius, Inc. is an artist-run 501(c)3 non-profit organization
for experimental work in all media. From 1983 to 2003, the group ran an alternative art center at 354 Congress Street
in Boston and later moved to a space at 725 Harrison Avenue. Founded by members of the Mobius Artists Group in 1983, the art center is a laboratory for artists experimenting at the boundaries of their disciplines.
Mobius has produced hundreds of original works which have received favorable reviews in Boston, nationally and internationally. Works created at Mobius have been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. It has a long-standing committment to artist-exchange projects, which bring artists from different regions together to work. International exchange projects with artists from Macedonia, Croatia, Poland, and Taiwan have focused on site-specific
works in public places.
Mobius has presented work involving thousands of artists over its 30-year history and is recognized as one of the seminal alternative, artist-run organizations in the U.S. It inspired the creation of other experimental artist-run performance spaces in Boston, including Bad Girrls Studios
.
The MAG has undergone several changes over its 30-year history, but has retained an experimental inter-media emphasis and continues to function as an artist-managed organization. The group’s membership has changed, with new members joining and older members leaving every year or two (although several members have been with the group either from the beginning or from the 1980s. There are generally between 12 and 20 members, with performance art, new music/sound art, installation, dance/movement, and video/film the disciplines most often represented. Since the mid-1990s, site-specific performance and installation works have become an increasingly-important element of MAG members’ works and the group has fostered international connections, serving as a locus for international exchange.
), and were based on 1970s experimental theatre
. They generally used texts written by others, but developed then collaboratively as a basis for structured improvisation. With a strong emphasis on the physical presence and stamina of their performers, the pieces were presented in the real (or actual) time shared with the audience (in contrast to “theatrical” time). The group’s name came from a characteristic aspect of theater pieces of that era. “Audience-activated performance pieces” were those in which structured audience input was crucial in determining aspects of a performance, including its length. This differed from audience participation as it is usually understood. In Persephone and Hades, for example, performances could be as brief as one hour or as long as three hours (or more), depending on an audience’s desire (and endurance). The cyclical nature of these early pieces suggested a Möbius strip
.
Between 1980 and 1983, Mobius Theater rented fifth-floor loft space on Kingston Street in Boston’s Chinatown
district. This space did not satisfy building-code requirements for public presentation; for example, electricity was provided by an upstairs neighbor who ran an extension cord down to the space from his own loft. As a result, the Kingston Street space was used for workshop performances and audiences solicited privately by mail. Public performances were given at spaces such as the Helen Schlein Gallery in the nearby Fort Point
neighborhood, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Overland Street theater, and two spaces in Boston’s Leather District
Gallery East and the South Street Loft. The private workshop performances featured monthly works-in-progress in which members of the company and invited artists showed their own developing works and stages in the theater’s group work, followed by an audience discussion (an uncommon presentation format during the early 1980s). MAG continued to present works-in-progress into the 21st century; the format expanded to include movement works-in-progress and student works, featuring pieces by area college students.
By 1983 the above-mentioned public-performance spaces had all disappeared or were in danger of doing so. In response to this situation Helen Schlein, who was closing her Fort Point gallery space, offered to help Mobius Theater obtain a lease to that space. At that time the Fort Point neighborhood was an area of neglected warehouses, colonized by what became in its time the largest artists' community in New England. As often happens with such areas, artists turned empty lofts into live/work spaces (legally or illegally), with landlords turning a blind eye in return for increased neighborhood stability. Helen Schlein was a pioneer in the presentation of installation work and performance art; without her advocacy, the development of such art in the Boston area would have been impaired, and the Mobius Artists Group would not have enjoyed the longevity it achieved.
Mobius Theater changed its name to Mobius, Inc. at this time, partly to avoid identifying the new space with a specific medium. Mobius, Inc. opened a performance/gallery space (named Mobius) in summer 1983. The move was celebrated by a five-hour, multi-location piece (Orpheus), which began in the Kingston Street loft and ended in the former Schlein gallery space. Mobius remained at 354 Congress Street in Fort Point for 20 years, closing in June 2003.
In 1984, Mobius Inc. changed its name to Mobius Performing Group (MPG); its membership changed to include those self-identified as performance artists, in addition to those self-identified as experimental-theater artists. The work presented by MPG had already branched out to include works created and performed by individual group members, in addition to those conceived and directed by Arsem. In addition (due to relationships formed in the Orpheus project), collaborations with experimental artists from other disciplines were featured. In 1987, MPG decided to open its membership to artists outside the theater/performance art field and its name changed to Mobius Artists Group.
MAG presented work in a wide range of media by artists ranging from local to international. Nevertheless, the group’s primary focus was on the local/regional (Boston/eastern New England) experimental arts scene, with the Mobius space a resource for development. The space remained artist-run; although the group has had paid staff during its history, its directors have always been members of the artists' group. This has given the Group autonomy in organizational direction, at the cost of volunteer effort and personal responsibility. For many, being a MAG member meant hard work for long periods (especially during the group's 20 years in Fort Point. At its zenith Mobius presented performances and installation nearly every week, ten months out of the year. Staff and group members had extensive contact with guest artists, including liaison and the review of proposals. The ArtRages fundraising parties, which began in the late 1990s and continued through 2007, were the high point of the Mobius programming year. The parties featured multiple simultaneous performances and installations with music by area bands and musicians, and served as community events.
Mobius published a print newsletter, in which the artists scheduled to present their work spoke for themselves. The ability of artists to communicate to a range of readers through writing varied widely, resulting in an unevenness in the quality of newsletter entries. Still, the newsletter allowed a direct presentation of artists’ voices.
During the late 1980s, Mobius, Inc. developed exchange programs with other art spaces and artists’ organizations. In these programs, artists from the partner organizations would present work either at Mobius or at other spaces (in programs produced by Mobius). In turn, MAG members visited the partner organizations. The first exchanges in the United States included partnerships with the 911 Media Arts Center
(Seattle), The LAB
(San Francisco), the Pyramid Art Center
(Rochester, NY) and NO BIAS (Bennington, Vermont). By the mid-1990s these exchanges had become global; many group members became part of an informal, extensive network of international performance artists. Major international exchange projects include:
These exchanges reached a high point with the Mobius International Festival of Performance Art, a five-night series of performances presented in Boston in November 2006. This festival featured over 20 international artists and the work of every member of the Artists Group (then numbering 15). In addition to organizational exchanges, individual group members have been invited to present work in over two dozen countries including Taiwan, Argentina, Canada and Germany.
In 2003, Mobius Inc.’s lease with the Boston Wharf Company expired. Mobius had benefited from its membership in the Fort Point Artists Community and its relationship with Boston Wharf, receiving 20 years of below-market-rate leases in commercial space. In the meantime, however, the Fort Point area had become highly desirable for urban development. Despite many years of activism and organization, artists were forced out of the area; buildings were either commercially redeveloped or destroyed. Mobius concluded its tenure at 354 Congress Street with Mobius 25, a two-week festival of performances and exhibits of visual art work by MAG members and friends dating back to Mobius Theater.
From 2003 to 2007, the Mobius Artists Group was itinerant. The group occupied two office/meeting spaces in Fort Point, but there was no full-time usable space available for the presentation of artwork. It continued to work in donated or affordable space in the Boston area and overseas, with individual and group projects presented regionally and internationally. The search for a new full-time, permanent space continued. While there was some benefit in discovering different places for the development of artwork, the hunt for space and negotiation of terms precluded long-term planning efforts.
In summer 2007, Mobius moved to 725 Harrison Ave. (in Boston’s South End
neighborhood) in the ArtBlock development. This location is near the Boston Medical Center
(formerly City Hospital), on the outskirts of a thriving artists’ neighborhood. The Artists Group (which numbered 18 in fall 2008) retains its commitment to presenting new work in a variety of media. MAG also continues its relationship with area performance students, primarily through personal relationships with the Performance Area of the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
as Mobius Theater. It is known for incorporating a wide range of visual, performing and media arts into live performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
, video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
and intermedia
Intermedia
Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
works. The members of the group create projects individually and in collaboration with members of the group and other artists. Mobius, Inc. is an artist-run 501(c)3 non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
for experimental work in all media. From 1983 to 2003, the group ran an alternative art center at 354 Congress Street
Congress Street (Boston)
Congress Street in Boston, Massachusetts is located in the Financial District and South Boston. It was first named in 1800. It was extended in 1854 as far as Atlantic Avenue, and in 1874 across Fort Point Channel into South Boston...
in Boston and later moved to a space at 725 Harrison Avenue. Founded by members of the Mobius Artists Group in 1983, the art center is a laboratory for artists experimenting at the boundaries of their disciplines.
Mobius has produced hundreds of original works which have received favorable reviews in Boston, nationally and internationally. Works created at Mobius have been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. It has a long-standing committment to artist-exchange projects, which bring artists from different regions together to work. International exchange projects with artists from Macedonia, Croatia, Poland, and Taiwan have focused on site-specific
Site-specific
Site-specific is used in a range of contexts:In art Site-specific artIn molecular biology Site-specific recombination...
works in public places.
Mobius has presented work involving thousands of artists over its 30-year history and is recognized as one of the seminal alternative, artist-run organizations in the U.S. It inspired the creation of other experimental artist-run performance spaces in Boston, including Bad Girrls Studios
Bad Girrls Studios
Bad Girrls Studios was a popular Boston gallery and performance space from 1996 to 2000,, located at 209 Green Street in Jamaica Plain. Founded by School of the Museum of Fine Arts student Jessica Brand, the artist-run studio hosted numerous events until it closed due to pressure from the Boston...
.
The MAG has undergone several changes over its 30-year history, but has retained an experimental inter-media emphasis and continues to function as an artist-managed organization. The group’s membership has changed, with new members joining and older members leaving every year or two (although several members have been with the group either from the beginning or from the 1980s. There are generally between 12 and 20 members, with performance art, new music/sound art, installation, dance/movement, and video/film the disciplines most often represented. Since the mid-1990s, site-specific performance and installation works have become an increasingly-important element of MAG members’ works and the group has fostered international connections, serving as a locus for international exchange.
History
The company’s theater pieces were directed by Marilyn Arsem (a faculty member of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, BostonSchool of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an undergraduate and graduate college located in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the visual arts. It is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in partnership with Tufts University...
), and were based on 1970s experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
. They generally used texts written by others, but developed then collaboratively as a basis for structured improvisation. With a strong emphasis on the physical presence and stamina of their performers, the pieces were presented in the real (or actual) time shared with the audience (in contrast to “theatrical” time). The group’s name came from a characteristic aspect of theater pieces of that era. “Audience-activated performance pieces” were those in which structured audience input was crucial in determining aspects of a performance, including its length. This differed from audience participation as it is usually understood. In Persephone and Hades, for example, performances could be as brief as one hour or as long as three hours (or more), depending on an audience’s desire (and endurance). The cyclical nature of these early pieces suggested a Möbius strip
Möbius strip
The Möbius strip or Möbius band is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface...
.
Between 1980 and 1983, Mobius Theater rented fifth-floor loft space on Kingston Street in Boston’s Chinatown
Chinatown, Boston
The only historically Chinese area in New England, Chinatown, Boston is a neighborhood located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Centered on Beach Street, the neighborhood borders Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, the South End, and the Southeast Expressway/Massachusetts Turnpike.Part of it...
district. This space did not satisfy building-code requirements for public presentation; for example, electricity was provided by an upstairs neighbor who ran an extension cord down to the space from his own loft. As a result, the Kingston Street space was used for workshop performances and audiences solicited privately by mail. Public performances were given at spaces such as the Helen Schlein Gallery in the nearby Fort Point
Fort Point, Boston
Fort Point is a neighborhood or district of Boston, Massachusetts, which is named after the location of a fort which guarded the city in colonial times....
neighborhood, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Overland Street theater, and two spaces in Boston’s Leather District
Leather District, Boston, Massachusetts
The Leather District is a neighborhood of Boston near South Street, between the Financial District and Chinatown. The Leather District is a tightly defined area bounded by Kneeland Street to the south, Essex Street to the north, Atlantic Avenue to the east and Lincoln Street to the west...
Gallery East and the South Street Loft. The private workshop performances featured monthly works-in-progress in which members of the company and invited artists showed their own developing works and stages in the theater’s group work, followed by an audience discussion (an uncommon presentation format during the early 1980s). MAG continued to present works-in-progress into the 21st century; the format expanded to include movement works-in-progress and student works, featuring pieces by area college students.
By 1983 the above-mentioned public-performance spaces had all disappeared or were in danger of doing so. In response to this situation Helen Schlein, who was closing her Fort Point gallery space, offered to help Mobius Theater obtain a lease to that space. At that time the Fort Point neighborhood was an area of neglected warehouses, colonized by what became in its time the largest artists' community in New England. As often happens with such areas, artists turned empty lofts into live/work spaces (legally or illegally), with landlords turning a blind eye in return for increased neighborhood stability. Helen Schlein was a pioneer in the presentation of installation work and performance art; without her advocacy, the development of such art in the Boston area would have been impaired, and the Mobius Artists Group would not have enjoyed the longevity it achieved.
Mobius Theater changed its name to Mobius, Inc. at this time, partly to avoid identifying the new space with a specific medium. Mobius, Inc. opened a performance/gallery space (named Mobius) in summer 1983. The move was celebrated by a five-hour, multi-location piece (Orpheus), which began in the Kingston Street loft and ended in the former Schlein gallery space. Mobius remained at 354 Congress Street in Fort Point for 20 years, closing in June 2003.
In 1984, Mobius Inc. changed its name to Mobius Performing Group (MPG); its membership changed to include those self-identified as performance artists, in addition to those self-identified as experimental-theater artists. The work presented by MPG had already branched out to include works created and performed by individual group members, in addition to those conceived and directed by Arsem. In addition (due to relationships formed in the Orpheus project), collaborations with experimental artists from other disciplines were featured. In 1987, MPG decided to open its membership to artists outside the theater/performance art field and its name changed to Mobius Artists Group.
MAG presented work in a wide range of media by artists ranging from local to international. Nevertheless, the group’s primary focus was on the local/regional (Boston/eastern New England) experimental arts scene, with the Mobius space a resource for development. The space remained artist-run; although the group has had paid staff during its history, its directors have always been members of the artists' group. This has given the Group autonomy in organizational direction, at the cost of volunteer effort and personal responsibility. For many, being a MAG member meant hard work for long periods (especially during the group's 20 years in Fort Point. At its zenith Mobius presented performances and installation nearly every week, ten months out of the year. Staff and group members had extensive contact with guest artists, including liaison and the review of proposals. The ArtRages fundraising parties, which began in the late 1990s and continued through 2007, were the high point of the Mobius programming year. The parties featured multiple simultaneous performances and installations with music by area bands and musicians, and served as community events.
Mobius published a print newsletter, in which the artists scheduled to present their work spoke for themselves. The ability of artists to communicate to a range of readers through writing varied widely, resulting in an unevenness in the quality of newsletter entries. Still, the newsletter allowed a direct presentation of artists’ voices.
During the late 1980s, Mobius, Inc. developed exchange programs with other art spaces and artists’ organizations. In these programs, artists from the partner organizations would present work either at Mobius or at other spaces (in programs produced by Mobius). In turn, MAG members visited the partner organizations. The first exchanges in the United States included partnerships with the 911 Media Arts Center
911 Media Arts Center
911 Media Arts Center is a non-profit media arts and access center located in Seattle, Washington. 911 Media Arts Center was incorporated on August 14, 1984 to support the expressive use of media tools through training, equipment and access grants. The organization also provides a forum and venue...
(Seattle), The LAB
The LAB
The LAB, located in San Francisco's historic Redstone Building, is a not-for-profit arts organization and performance space founded in 1984.The Lab "supports interdisciplinary artists in the development and exhibition of new visual, media, literary, and performing art, with a focus on emerging and...
(San Francisco), the Pyramid Art Center
Rochester Contemporary Art Center
Rochester Contemporary Art Center is a non-profit located in Rochester, New York, that exhibits and supports contemporary art of all forms. Founded as Pyramid Arts Center in 1977 by Tony Petracca and Gina Mosesson, the gallery was located in several different storefronts and warehouse spaces around...
(Rochester, NY) and NO BIAS (Bennington, Vermont). By the mid-1990s these exchanges had become global; many group members became part of an informal, extensive network of international performance artists. Major international exchange projects include:
- 1996–1997: Liquor Amnii—an exchange with women artists from Macedonia in cooperation with Skopsko Leto (Skopje, Macedonia) and the Convergence Festival (Providence, Rhode Island)
- 1999–2000: Usvajanje Slobode ("Taking Liberty"), an exchange with artists in Istria, Croatia
- 2001–2002: "Digging the Channel" , an exchange with artists in Zadar, Croatia
- 2003: Juliiett 484, an exchange with artists in Ustka and Gdansk, Poland (in the United States, work was presented in Providence, Boston, and New York)
These exchanges reached a high point with the Mobius International Festival of Performance Art, a five-night series of performances presented in Boston in November 2006. This festival featured over 20 international artists and the work of every member of the Artists Group (then numbering 15). In addition to organizational exchanges, individual group members have been invited to present work in over two dozen countries including Taiwan, Argentina, Canada and Germany.
In 2003, Mobius Inc.’s lease with the Boston Wharf Company expired. Mobius had benefited from its membership in the Fort Point Artists Community and its relationship with Boston Wharf, receiving 20 years of below-market-rate leases in commercial space. In the meantime, however, the Fort Point area had become highly desirable for urban development. Despite many years of activism and organization, artists were forced out of the area; buildings were either commercially redeveloped or destroyed. Mobius concluded its tenure at 354 Congress Street with Mobius 25, a two-week festival of performances and exhibits of visual art work by MAG members and friends dating back to Mobius Theater.
From 2003 to 2007, the Mobius Artists Group was itinerant. The group occupied two office/meeting spaces in Fort Point, but there was no full-time usable space available for the presentation of artwork. It continued to work in donated or affordable space in the Boston area and overseas, with individual and group projects presented regionally and internationally. The search for a new full-time, permanent space continued. While there was some benefit in discovering different places for the development of artwork, the hunt for space and negotiation of terms precluded long-term planning efforts.
In summer 2007, Mobius moved to 725 Harrison Ave. (in Boston’s South End
South End, Boston, Massachusetts
The South End is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.-Geography:The South End lies south of the Back Bay, northwest of South Boston, northeast of Roxbury, north of Dorchester, and southwest of Bay Village...
neighborhood) in the ArtBlock development. This location is near the Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center is a non-profit 639 licensed-bed medical center in Boston, Massachusetts. It was created by the formal merger of Boston City Hospital which was the first municipal hospital in the United States and Boston University Medical Center Hospital in July 1996 which was sponsored...
(formerly City Hospital), on the outskirts of a thriving artists’ neighborhood. The Artists Group (which numbered 18 in fall 2008) retains its commitment to presenting new work in a variety of media. MAG also continues its relationship with area performance students, primarily through personal relationships with the Performance Area of the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.