“A Possible Horizon: The Perpetual Portraits of Felix Gonzalez-Torres,” in Josh T. Franco and Charlotte Ickes, eds., Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return (Santa Fe: Radius Books and National Portrait Gallery–Smithsonian Institution, 2025).
Teaching Guides
Julie Ault
This guide centers on two works: Julie Ault’s public artwork “Points of Entry” (2004) and Group Material’s influential project “Democracy” (1987-89). Although Ault continues to produce influential works, as detailed in the biography section, we’ve chosen these two projects for their deep engagement with themes of democracy, education, and community participation. These themes not only reflect the core values of A.R.T., but also resonate powerfully with the current cultural and political moment.
"Macho Man, Tell It To My Heart: Collected by Julie Ault."
Installation view, Artists Space, New York, 2013. Photo: Daniel Pérez.
Guiding Question
What kinds of access does a democracy require?
What is required for engaging with democracy in a critical, informed, and meaningful way?
Activities
The following activities are structured to sequentially build on each other.
Activity 1: Guiding Question Pre-Write
Activity 2: Points of Entry
Activity 3: Democracy
Biography
Julie Ault (b. 1957) is an artist and writer whose collaborative and discipline-crossing practice interrogates how histories are retold and how they can effect change in the present. She is known for innovating new models of artistic form that encompass exhibition-making, publication, archiving, and collective research, producing work across a range of formats that interrogates how cultural production is shaped by, and can intervene in, wider social and political systems.
Ault’s early work developed alongside her pivotal role as a co-founder of Group Material, an artist collective active in New York between 1979 and 1996 that experimented with political models of artistic practice by staging thematic and site-specific exhibitions addressing topical social issues. Forming amidst a dynamic ecosystem of alternative art groups, and politicized through histories of anti-war and civil rights activism, Group Material comprised a shifting membership that included artists Tim Rollins, Doug Ashford, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres alongside Ault. Their collaborations manifested in innovative and influential shows such as “The People’s Choice (Arroz con Mango)” (1981), featuring artworks alongside personal items donated by residents of the Lower East Side neighborhood where the group was based; “Democracy” (1988–89), catalyzing a public interrogation of the titular theme through a rotating exhibition and “town hall” events; and “AIDS Timeline” (1989), unpacking the cultural-political ramifications of the AIDS epidemic and failed public response through a multi-layered chronology.
After the dissolution of Group Material, Ault continued to develop innovative, research-driven approaches to art-making—both individually and collaboratively—favoring curating exhibitions, writing, and editing publications as her primary mediums. Significant exhibitions curated by Ault include “Afterlife: a constellation” (Whitney Museum, 2014), and Nancy Spero: Paper Mirror (PS1/MoMA, 2019). Ault’s writing chiefly reflects longstanding collaborations and dialogues with fellow artists, among them Roni Horn, Danh Vo, Martin Beck, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Ault has edited numerous definitive publication such as “Alternative Art New York: 1965–1985” (University of Minnesota Press, 2002) “Show and tell: A Chronicle of Group Material” (Four Corners Books, 2010); “Felix Gonzalez-Torres”(Steidl, 2006); and “Come Alive: The Spirited Art of Sister Corita,” (Four Corners Books, 2006) among numerous other projects. In 2011 A.R.T. Press published “(FC) Two Cabins by JB,” a book that documents and analyzes a body of work by James Benning.
Ault continues to investigate, through diverse artistic strategies, the agency that personal and collective histories have in the present and our possibilities for social change.
Videos
Selected Bibliography
“The Ongoing Discovery of Paul Thek,” exhibition brochure (New York, Galerie Buchholz, 2024).
“The Fugitive Figuration of Jochen Klein,” exhibition text, in Jochen Klein After the Light, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, 2023.
“Copies of Copies of Copies: The Melodramas of Bruce and Norman Yonemoto,” in ed. Milan Thur, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto: Mirror of Desire, exhibition catalogue (Hamburg: Kunstverein in Hamburg, 2023).
"Introduction: The Makings of Karin Higa,” in ed. Julie Ault, Hidden in Plain Sight: Selected Writings of Karin Higa (New York: Dancing Foxes Press, 2022).
DUETS: Julie Ault & David Deitcher in Conversation on William Olander (New York: Visual AIDS, 2021).
“Towards a Science of Jim Hodges,” in Michele Robecchi, ed., Jim Hodges (London: Phaidon Press, 2021).
“Freedom from and freedom to,” in Wang Bing: L’ŒIL QUI MARCHE [The Walking Eye] (Paris: Roma Publications and LE BAL, 2021).
“Alejandro Cesarco’s Archive of Comet Tails,” in Alejandro Cesarco: Song (Chicago: THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY at the University of Chicago, 2019).
“Notes Toward a Frame of Reference,” in David Breslin and David Kiehl, eds., David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake At Night (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2018).
“The Conjunction of Martin Beck,” in Matthias Michalka, ed., Martin Beck: rumors and murmurs (Vienna: Mumok, 2017).
“Present Past: A Conversation between Fareed Armaly and Julie Ault,” in to expose, to show, to demonstrate, to inform, to offer, curated by Mathias Michalka (Vienna: Mumok, 2015).
“Martin Wong Was Here” in Antonio Sergio Bessa, ed., Martin Wong: Human Instamatic (London: Black Dog Publishing and New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 2015).
Julie Ault & Lucy R. Lippard on Nancy Spero, Starship, Nr. 13, Summer 2015.
“Moving Water: The Flow of Roni Horn,” [Julie Ault in conversation with Roni Horn] in Roni Horn, (Barcelona: Fundació Joan Miró, 2014).
Julie Ault, Remembering and Forgetting in the Archive: Instituting ‘Group Material’(1979–1996), DOCTORAL STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN FINE AND PERFORMING ARTS, NO 8. MALMÖ FACULTY OF FINE AND PERFORMING ARTS, LUND UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN, 2011. (includes Retrospective / Prospective: Activating the Archive, 2010, and Archive, Archived, Archiving, 2011).
Conversation between Julie Ault and Tim Rollins, in Mousse #30, 2011.
“Lunchtime Timeline: Some Brands I Have Loved,” in Sharon Lockhart, Lunch Break Times, newspaper handout, 2010.
“What a Pair: Roni Horn aka Roni Horn,” in Roni Horn, (Bregenz Kunsthaus, 2010).
“Voice Recognition: Nancy Spero,” in Artforum, vol. 48, nr. 6 (February 2010).
Julie Ault, Martin Beck, “No-Stop-City High-Rise,” exhibition texts, for No-Stop-City High-Rise, São Paulo Bienal, 2010.
“Tim,” in Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2009).
“The Subject is Exhibition (2007): Installation as Possibility in the Practice of Wolfgang Tillmans,” in Wolfgang Tillmans: Lighter, (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2007).
“Using the Earth as a Map of Himself: The Personal Conceptualism of James Benning,” in James Benning, (Vienna: Filmmuseum Vienna, 2007).
“Train of Thought: Education and Art,” in Maria Eichhorn, newspaper for Freie Universitat Bozen, 2004.
Julie Ault, Martin Beck, Critical Condition, Selected Texts in Dialogue (Essen: Kokerei Zollverein/Zeitgenössische Kunst und Kritik, 2003).
Julie Ault, ed., Alternative Art New York 1965-1985 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press and The Drawing Center, 2002) [includes, Ault, “For the Record” and “A Chronology of Selected Alternative Structures, Spaces, Artists’ Groups, and Organizations in New York City”
Reading Resources: Julie Ault is available as a downloadable PDF.
Colophon
Reading Resources: Julie Ault was produced by Wendy Tronrud (A.R.T. Education Advisor) in collaboration with A.rt R.esources T.ransfer (A.R.T.) in 2024–25.
Julie Ault was the A.R.T. Library Program's Honoree in 2024;
we distributed 28,094 art books at no cost to 526 public libraries,
schools and prisons in her name.
Reading Resources is supported by:
National Endowment for the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts
H.W. Wilson Foundation
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Teiger Foundation
Roni Horn Foundation
A.R.T. Board of Directors
A.R.T. Advisory Board
Very special thank you Julie Ault.
Design by Other Means.
Copyright © A.rt R.esources T.ransfer, Inc. 2025.
All images are protected under copyright by the original rights holders.
A.R.T. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit.