No.1 Gold was founded in 1997 as an artistic collaboration of three women of color artists and writers, Gabrielle Civil, Madhu H. Kaza, and Rosamond. S. King (aka “those black girls and that Indian one”). Active in the late 1990s through the mid 2000s, No 1. Gold was a creative laboratory for race, creative writing, conceptual and performance art. The founding statement declared:
No. 1 Gold = writing
urban travel
labor
space
aesthetics
represent
dilettante
astonishment
These keywords informed a series of conceptual, literary, dissemination and mail-art projects as well as three live performance events. Inspired by Félix González-Torres, Coco Fusco, and Fred Wilson (mad props!), No.1 Gold served as a means of the members’ collective self-education and development as writers, performance and conceptual artists, teachers, thinkers and bodies in public space.
With no formal visual art background or the help of the internet, No 1. Gold members used the collective to explore and embody new possibilities for creative writing, race and art in New York City and beyond.
No. 1 Gold was relaunched with new areas of emphasis (“doing things with books”) in 2018.