At most artist retreats, artists or writers are sequestered all day in their cabins or studios, until they break at night for some less-than-monastic carousing.

But the Triangle Artists’ biannual two-week workshop, founded in 1982 by the British sculptor Anthony Caro and a businessman, Robert Loder, has a different goal entirely: to offer the close quarters, intense discussion, and camaraderie that most artists haven’t experienced since their art-school days. In 25 years, the model has proved so popular that it has spread from New York — where it started in 1982 in rural Dutchess County before migrating first to the World Trade Center and then to DUMBO — all over the world. Workshops have taken place in locations from Cape Town, South Africa, to Kunming, China, to a fishing village in Martinique.

In the coming weeks, the New York workshop is celebrating its anniversary with several events around the city. An exhibition of work by alumni (all for sale to benefit Triangle Arts Association) will open on Saturday, as part of the DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival. In a panel on October 3 at the New York Studio School, moderated by the curator and critic Karen Wilkin, alumni will discuss how the workshop has influenced their studio practice. On October 16 at the Drawing Center, Mr. Caro — who has an exhibition of new galvanized steel sculptures opening October 18 at Mitchell-Innes & Nash — will discuss the relationship between sculpture and architecture with his friend Frank Stella.

In early 1982, Mr. Caro and Mr. Loder made a trip up to Dutchess County, with the goal of finding someplace to store Mr. Caro’s large-scale sculptures. The owner of the club where they stayed, the Mashomack Fish & Game Preserve, offered his own empty barns and creameries. Mr. Caro decided they weren’t right for his sculptures, but he thought they would be the perfect place to hold a workshop, where artists could work side-by-side in these enormous spaces.

“It’s very lonely being an artist,” Mr. Caro said in an interview. When he would visit America, he said, he and his friends would congregate in someone’s studio, giving him a wonderful, if unrealistic, impression of American artists’ sociability. “I said, ‘It’s amazing, we don’t do this in England, we don’t go to [one another’s] studios.’ And they said ‘We don’t, either — we only do this when you come along!'”

For the first workshop, Mr. Caro invited 10 artists each from Britain, Canada, and America — hence the “Triangle” name. Many were friends of his, or people, like the painter Jill Nathanson, whose work he had seen and liked. Visiting artists and critics, including Clement Greenberg, came for a day or two, to look at the artists’ work and speak on panels in the evenings. Although the workshop was intended to be a one-time thing, Mr. Caro said, the artists enjoyed it so much they asked him to do it again.

Ultimately, he ran the workshop for 10 years, before “pass[ing] it on to fresh blood.” Triangle Arts Association, which since 2003 also offers six-month and one-year residencies, is run by an executive director, Sarah Walko, and a board that includes Ms. Wilkin and Ms. Nathanson and is chaired by the sculptor Willard Boepple. Admission to the workshop is granted on the basis of application, by a peer jury. The workshop includes room, board, and studio space; need-based travel grants and help purchasing materials are also available.

The Triangle experience is partly about observing other artists’ studio practices — a process that can be both inspiring and humbling. “You question what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. It really attacks your preciosity,” Ms. Nathanson said. “When you’re by yourself, you paint for a little while and then you stand back and have a cup of coffee and say, ‘Isn’t that wonderful?'” she said. Whereas “[i]f you’re in a studio with other people, and you see them working incredibly hard, you think, ‘I could work three times as hard.'”

There have also been significant cross-disciplinary projects. In 1987, for example, four architects came: Frank Gehry, the British couple Peter and Alison Smithson, and William McDonough. Mr. Gehry and Mr. Caro created a kind of village out of some of Mr. Caro’s sculptures. Mr. McDonough and Mr. Boepple built a pavilion, and the Smithsons collaborated with artists in transforming the spaces within one of the old creameries.

Not that it was all work. At night, there was ping-pong and drinking and dancing. Relationships developed. “There have been several Triangle marriages, and at least one Triangle divorce,” Ms. Wilkin said.

Early on, Triangle grew beyond the original three countries to include artists from Africa, where Mr. Loder had many connections, and from continental Europe. By now, it has included artists from over 40 countries. It has also grown into an informal international network. There are workshops in Africa, India, China, and elsewhere. There are permanent institutions, offering both workshops and residencies in, among other cities, London (where it is called Gasworks), Johannesburg, South Africa (the Bag Factory), and Marseille (Triangle France). The New York workshop now occupies space donated by David Walentas of Two Trees Management.

Whereas the early years were dominated by abstract painters and sculptors, there are now many artists working in installation, performance, and video. A participant in the 2006 DUMBO workshop, Jason Lujan, said the competition was fierce in the studio for the available power outlets. “They’ll definitely have to negotiate more computers” in the future, Mr. Lujan said.

But despite all the changes, Mr. Boepple said, the “essential vision” of Triangle — that artists learn from other artists — remains the same.

“When you get a chance to see other artists actually at work, you learn stuff, from the trivial to the important,” Mr. Boepple said. As artists mature, he continued, “they miss some of the input and tumult they had when they were young and sharing studios, or were in schools with 40 or 50 other strivers around them. What Triangle hopes to provide is a real jolt of that tumult and exchange.”

September 29 until October 20, 70 Washington St. (entrance is on ground level around the corner on Front Street), opening night party, September 28, $25 for two between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., $5 after 9 p.m.

October 3, New York Studio School, 8 W. 8th St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-673-6466. October 16, the Drawing Center, 35 Wooster St., between Broome and Grand streets, $250, including free admission to the September 28 exhibition preview and reserved seating for the October 3 panel. For tickets, call Triangle Arts Association at 718-858-1260 or contact mail@triangleworkshop.com.

October 18 until November 21, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 534 W. 26th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-744-7400.