Book excerpt: Art Gangs explores the work of artists groups in New York City after 1968. From the Art Workers Coalition through Art & Language, Colab and Group Material in the 1980s, in Soho and the Lower East Side, these collectives built the postmodern art world. This is the key background story of today s politicized international art world with its constellations of collectives, a scholarly text written in an accessible style -- Back cover.