The Mobius Artists Group is an interdisciplinary group of artists, founded in 1977 by Marilyn Arsem in Boston, Massachusetts as Mobius Theater. It is known for incorporating a wide range of visual, performing and media arts into live performance, video, installation and intermedia works. The members of the group create projects individually and in collaboration with members of the group and other artists. Mobius, Inc. is an artist-run 501(c)3 non-profit organization for experimental work in all media. From 1983 to 2003, the group ran an alternative art center at 354 Congress Street in Boston, later moved to a space at 725 Harrison Avenue and are currently located across the river at 55 Norfolk Street in Cambridge, MA. Founded by members of the Mobius Artists Group in 1983, the art center is a laboratory for artists experimenting at the boundaries of their disciplines.[1]
Mobius has produced hundreds of original works which have received favorable reviews in Boston, nationally and internationally. Works created at Mobius have been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. It has a long-standing commitment to artist-exchange projects, which bring artists from different regions together to work. International exchange projects with artists from Macedonia, Croatia, Poland, and Taiwan have focused on site-specific works in public places.[2] Mobius has presented work involving thousands of artists over its 30-year history and is recognized as one of the seminal alternative, artist-run organizations in the U.S. It inspired the creation of other experimental artist-run performance spaces in Boston, including Bad Girrls Studios.
The MAG has undergone several changes over its 30-year history, but has retained an experimental inter-media emphasis and continues to function as an artist-managed organization. The group's membership has changed, with new members joining and older members leaving every year or two (although several members have been with the group either from the beginning or from the 1980s. There are generally between 12 and 20 members, with performance art, new music/sound art, installation, dance/movement, and video/film the disciplines most often represented. Since the mid-1990s, site-specific performance and installation works have become an increasingly important element of MAG members’ works and the group has fostered international connections, serving as a locus for international exchange.