COLLABORATIVE / ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT
Debt Collective
Debt Collective was the collaborative artistic and exhibition-organizing structure developed by Ian Swanson and Christopher Samuels in Detroit. It joined the artists’ work with the production of exhibition sites, group projects, and shared installations.
The collective organized Institution/simulacrum and Rigged at 1353 Division, followed by Detroit Loves Company at Johanson Charles Gallery. Its later exhibition record includes Occupied at Cass Café Gallery and Collected at Anton Art Center in 2009.
Swanson and Samuels continued to collaborate after Debt Collective. Those later exhibitions are documented below as related collaborations, not absorbed into the collective’s formal history.
2007–11
Debt Collective
Invitations, installation views, and event photographs trace the collective’s movement between self-organized sites, commercial-gallery contexts, and regional institutions.
2009
Occupied
Cass Café Gallery · Detroit
Exhibition invitation and installation views from Debt Collective’s presentation at Cass Café Gallery, January 17–March 8, 2009.
2009
Collected
Anton Art Center · Mt. Clemens, Michigan
Installation views from the exhibition organized by Debt Collective at Anton Art Center.
RELATED COLLABORATION
Christopher Samuels and Ian Swanson
Paint Creek Center for the Arts · 2011
The two-person exhibition at Paint Creek Center for the Arts was built around exchanged soundtracks. Samuels supplied Pocket Anxiety; Swanson supplied Titanomachia. Each artist made work while listening to the other’s recording.
ORIGINAL CATALOG
Christopher Samuels and Ian Swanson, Paint Creek Center for the Arts, 2011 ↗
RELATED COLLABORATION · 2015
Java Project
Brooklyn
Swanson and Samuels collaborated again at Java Project through Sex Objects / objetosexual.info. The exhibition was not formally a Debt Collective project.