[deletia] is an artist-run collective that takes the view that art is, or should be, a communication between the artist and viewer.

It strives to prioritise dialogue, conversation, and exchange of ideas within artistic practice, making an argument for us to actively engage with the discursive spaces and ruptures within visual culture.

Very much allied to this notion of discursive space is a highlighting of artistic practice above art works. So where does [deletia] reside? Well, for me it lies within the circulation of ideas. At this time of writing [deletia] is two issues in: #1 took the shape of four inserts inside, but removable from, Art Monthly, and #2 will take the form of five full-page adverts in Art Review between September 2005 and January 2006.

The two contexts are art magazines, but are very different – one specialist the other populist.

Artists using the purchasable space of art magazines has a history – perhaps the most infamous example is Lynda Bengalis’ Artforum advertisement and the most referenced Dan Graham’s Homes For America.

Magazines from the early 1970s such as Avalanche, Art Rite, File, Studio International and Tracks make good reference points for the current activities of [deletia], as do the histories of zines networks and artists’ working with ephemera. The location through which you have come across this text, the network of the Internet, is of course another key reference, with sites, such as rhizome.org, and blogs, such as The Tears of Things, providing locations for remote conversation and exchange.

[deletia] sets out to present art through immediacy and practice. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu writes of a notion of ‘the field’, which he describes as a dynamic and evolving space where any artwork exists not just as itself, but also as all the things that work on it. So we could ask what makes the practice of an artist ‘the practice of the artist’. It is not simply the artwork but all the other things that work on and around the work, with the rumour that is documentation initiating a long-term discourse around art.

Consider any encounter you might experience: often it becomes more ‘real’ and ‘valid’ when you communicate it to others – holiday snaps make a holiday; an unusual encounter on an everyday journey can be experienced more once it becomes anecdote; a specific incident becomes history once it can be referred to in a book. [deletia] chooses to make its site the broad field of art.

Any economy is based on a process of production, consumption, and distribution. In the field of art the artist will produce the work, which will be then distributed through magazines, publications, rumour, documentation and exhibition, to be then consumed by the audience. This model, however, does not quite work when it comes to art.

The artist will not only be the producer – he or she cannot help but also be the consumer and the viewer of the work. Much artwork is only consumed through its distribution - think of all the art you think you know well but really you have only experienced it through reproduction.

So what does it mean when the means of distribution sets out to make this encounter direct, unmediated, and in tune with artists' thinking? I think it opens up a radical change for considering art based on pushing boundaries, initiating dialogues, and making support structure.

Lisa Le Feuvre, August 2005