Colab

[5][1]: 9–11 Advocating a form of cultural activism that was purely artist driven, the group created artworks, negotiated venues, curated shows, and engaged in discourse that responded to the political themes and predicaments of their time, among them the recessions of the 1970s, the Reagan era of budget cuts and nuclear armament, the housing crisis and gentrification in New York City, and other pressing social issues.

In 1980, artists emulating 1970s Puerto Rican activists seized a building on New York's Lower East Side and opened it as a collectively run cultural center.

ABC No Rio was passed on to successive managements until today it is an anarchist cultural center run by a collective with close ties to the publishing group Autonomedia.

That year Art International Radio also featured an interview and conversation between Jane Dickson, Coleen Fitzgibbon, and Becky Howland about Colab and the 1980 The Real Estate Show which birthed the ABC No Rio cultural center.

Other iterations of the store were later presented at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Jack Tilton Gallery, White Columns, and Printed Matter, Inc.[31] The 2017 documentary film Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Sara Driver contains extensive coverage of Colab, The Real Estate Show, The Times Square Show and ABC No Rio through on-camera interviews with once Colab president Coleen Fitzgibbon and art critic Carlo McCormick.