Writer, Researcher
Alan researches the squatting movement in Europe, producing a yearly journal of occupation culture called “House Magic” (2009-2016). He published “Occupation Culture: Art, Squatting and the City from Below” (Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2015). The PDF is online at http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=684. He lives in Madrid, and work with a European network of researchers called SqEK. With a small grant they obtained, he edited an anthology of texts (with Alan Smart), “Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces” (Journal of Aesthetics & Protest/Other Forms, 2015; PDF online at http://joaap.org/press/makingroom.htm). In addition, he continues to work on the archive of the NYC artists’ group Colab. His texts are included in the book, Max Schumann, ed., “A Book About Colab (and Related Activities)” (Printed Matter, NY, 2016). As an art historian (PhD, CUNY, 2000), he has written on artists’ groups. He worked with Colab and helped start the cultural center ABC No Rio in New York City. He wrote “Art Gangs: Protest and Counterculture in New York City” (Autonomedia, 2011), and chapters for Julie Ault, “Alternative Art NY”; Blake Stimson & Gregory Sholette, “Collectivism after Modernism”; and Clayton Patterson, “Resistance: A Political History of the Lower East Side.” He taught modern and contemporary art history and theory for some 10 years. Before that, he worked as a writer and artist in New York City from 1974-2009.
He continues to be very interested in alternative and transgressive culture, and its organizational, social and economic bases.
Happy to work on projects related to squatting, commmonsing, alternative economy.
