Artist & Homeless Collaborative was created (1990) by artist Hope Sandrow as an interdisciplinary art project.  An experimental laboratory in social and cultural studies sited in New York City shelters housed in Armories where Modern Art was first exhibited in America, and, at The Whitney Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. 

The artworks addressed issues relating to race, class, money, ageism, discrimination, gender, domestic violence, rape, multiculturalism and AIDS. At a time when the American “right” was blaming Gay men for AIDS;  artists as the cause of ill in our culture; women for their own rape; the poor for losing their homes. Marginalization is an oft-used means to isolate those deemed not to fit “in.”

Sandrow and her colleagues created works of art through dialogue and collaboration with residents of the Park Avenue Shelters for Homeless Women housed in the upper floors of the 68 and 69th Regiment Armories; joined by teens and children from the Regent Family residence at The Whitney Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art.

Artist & Homeless Collaborative film by Ulf Skogsbergh.

Featuring: Artist and A&HC Project Director, Hope Sandrow; Artist, Keiko Bonk; Director of the Armory Shelter, Marie Brody, and the many women involved in this project who are listed with all the other participants further below.

“In her own art-making, Hope Sandrow takes a more impressionistic approach to social issues, resulting in works of a less overtly political nature. At first glance her photographs and photographic compositions seem to be of a very personal nature, offering deliberately obscured, fragmented views of existence, connection, and memory. Uninterested in freezing moments on celluloid, Sandrow uses her camera to explore reality’s ambiguous, experiential qualities. Seen through her lens, life does not unfold in a clear and logical sequence, nor is it immediately interpretable; and in contrast to most photography, in her work time, almost never stands still. Sandrow, whom one reviewer called “une virtuose de bouge,” (a virtuoso of movement) was making work another reviewer called “extremely perplexing”. These writers may have grasped something essential about the work that others who gushed about its “romantic” or “nostalgic” qualities perhaps did not. Hope & Fear, a series of arranged and composed pictures taken at the MET--juxtaposes the museum’s version of reality with Sandrow’s own. To say that the making and marketing of art was not immune to the kind of general cynicism expressed everywhere from Madison Avenue to Wall Street is not to imply that artists are wrong to seek and receive recognition and fair compensation or that the only “true” artist is a starving-or better yet, a dead-artist.”

— Andrea Wolper, The Spirit of Art as Activism, Making Art, Reclaiming Lives: The Artist & Homeless Collaborative, 1995

Artist & Homeless Collaborative (A&HC) was an innovative public art project in which artists and arts professionals created artworks with women and children living without their own homes in New York City shelters. The resulting connection was of art to life, during which conceptual ideas took (and take) form as art activism, cultivating self-representation, and identity.

The relevancy of art to and in the community is exhibited in artworks directly addressing social issues including domestic violence, rape, gender, discrimination, money, ageism, and multiculturalism. Marginalization is an often used means by which to isolate those who do not fit “in”, such as artists and those titled “homeless”. 

The first international exhibition of Modern Art in America (1913) took place at the 69th Regiment Armory,  initiating a tradition practiced at both Armories to this day during The Art Show organized by ADAA. The Armory Show was founded by Paul Morris, and the Park Avenue Armory Organization.

2022

Art for Change: The Artist & Homeless Collaborative

The New York Historical Society

December 3, 2021 - April 3, 2022

Curated by Rebecca Klassen, Associate Curator of Material Culture, and Laura Mogulescu, Curator of Women’s History Collections with Tracey Johnson, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Center for Women’s History, and Curatorial Intern, Lisa Diaz Louis.

ART NEWS: How a New York Artist Used Her Work to Offer a Respite for Homeless Women During the ’90s

Art for Change: The Artist & Homeless Collaborative examines the history of modern homelessness in New York City through the lens of the Artist & Homeless Collaborative, a public art project founded in 1990 by multidisciplinary artist Hope Sandrow. The program, which connected women from the Park Avenue Armory Shelter for Homeless Women with artists, curators, and activists, provided a vehicle for the women to tell their stories, work creatively, and build relationships. On view in the Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery, the exhibition looks at the transformative potential of art in public and private life through a selection of art projects led by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Ida Applebroog, the Guerrilla Girls, Hope Sandrow, Judith Shea, Kiki Smith, among others. 

Art for Change includes John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres’s Ernestine and Three Friends (1992) — a group of painted plaster life-cast busts of four shelter residents held in New York Historical’s collections. Examples of work created by participants and artists on view include self-portraits, photography, mixed media, pin-back buttons, writings, and other artistic expressions. The exhibition also features the work of advocates and artists that were a direct response to the homeless crisis in New York of the late 1970s and 1980s as well as more recent works from artists and art groups that continue to bring art into shelters, using it as an opportunity to build relationships and as a way for people to tell their stories.

See the selected list of Exhibitions, Press, Publications, Lectures and Workshops associated with Artist and Homeless Collaborative below.

Installation details included in the section “Art as Activism” are three portraits of friends who passed from our lives due to AIDS. Their loss propelled me to question the relevancy of art to life personally.

(l to r) Portrait of Nicolas Moufarrege, and Portrait of Keith Haring, Men on the Streets, 1982, Silver gelatin prints 14" x 11”; Hope Sandrow with Peter Hujar, Self Control, Back on the Streets, 1984 Silver gelatin print framed 24" x 20”.

Edna Diaz, Hope Sandrow Three Views: The Life of Edna Diaz, 1991 Newsprint 15 ⅜ x 10 ¼ in, Silver print 13 ⅜" x 9 ⅜", Color Polaroids 28.75" x 23.5", staples

8 Anonymous Residents 25th Regiment Armory with Hope Sandrow and Michael Boodro, 1994, What I need/What I want, Color Polaroids, staples, each unique 10” x 10”