Thoughts on Collaborative Artwork (Kerry)

Art is intrinsically a collaborative process. A collaboration takes place between the artist and the artwork through the process of creating the work; there is a responsive relationship between the two. However, in order to take on a wider collaboration involving more than one artist, each artist is required to step back from their unique ownership of the work, to allow the creativity and inventiveness of others to be heard, and to contribute to the work in a spirit of co-operation. Inevitably the distinctions between the individual artists will become blurred as a result of the discourse that takes place between them and their materials, as the creative process progresses.

Over the last twenty years, Australian author and artist, Paul Carter, has undertaken a series of collaborations as a writer interacting, variously, with dancers, artists, museologists and film-makers. His observations on the collaborative process in his book, Material Thinking, are pertinent to my investigation into the role of art in imagining sustainable futures. He states that his aim is “to show how the process of material thinking enables us to think differently about our human situation, and…to demonstrate the great role works of art can play in the ethical project of becoming (collectively and individually) oneself in a particular place.” He suggests that material thinking is what takes place as a result of artists daring to ask ‘what matters?’ and ‘what is the material of thought?’ when embarking on a work of art. Carter claims that the decisions that are made in the artistic process are inevitably material ones. He sees these decisions as part of creative research.

He asserts that societies are “mythopoetic inventions” and that it is necessary for us to understand how identities form and “how relationships with others are actively invented (and therefore susceptible to reinvention)” if our societies are to sustain themselves. It is one function of the artist to rematerialise these metaphysical myths through the creative process and to show how more sustainable artificial myths can come into circulation. Artists can do this by “displacing those myths that are no longer sustainable and brokering a new relationship with degraded environments, displaced others and…an impoverished imaginary.” By undertaking creative research in a collaborative environment, the artist can hope to broaden a community’s understanding of itself and of the society and the environment of which it is part.

Carter concludes the prologue to his book by declaring that “in the end, collaboration is not simply a pragmatic response to increasingly complex work conditions; it is what happens wherever artists talk about what they are doing, in that simple but enigmatic step, joining hand, eye and mind in the process of material thinking.”


Appendix:
Sydney Art Exchange collaboration

In July 2010, the seven artists making up the not-for-profit artist organization, Sydney Art Exchange, hung their collaborative work Girt By Sea in the Bondi Pavilion as part of a joint exhibition by the same name. The artists involved were Anya Pesce, Kerry MacAulay, Christina Puth, Elke Wohlfahrt, David Jones, Eleanor Er and Corinne Brittain.

The forty-nine pieces making up the work stretched the whole length of one wall of the gallery and extended around the corner onto the adjacent wall. Each A5 (20cm x 15cm) piece was framed separately. The individual pieces had been created over the previous seven months according to a set of guidelines created by Sydney Art Exchange artist, Elke Wohlfahrt. Seven blank mdf boards were distributed to each of the seven artists with instructions to create a painting including some motif on the theme ‘girt by sea’, which is a phrase from the Australian national anthem (as in ‘our home is girt by sea’). These motifs were not verbally divulged to the other artists. On the appointed day the artists sent their completed works by mail to the next artist designated on their roster. Over the following month the artists created a new work incorporating their own motif as before and including some element from the work they had received in the mail. Each of the second paintings was again posted to the next artist on their roster. The process continued over the next seven months until each artist had completed seven paintings.

Frames had previously been constructed and lime washed by the participating artists. The group gathered to frame the collection of paintings before the July exhibition; each artist bringing the seven works which they had collected over the time of the collaboration. It was a revelation to finally view the entire collection of the collaborative works and to begin to identify the interweaving of the various motifs that the artists had used.

The artists explained their ideas about ‘girt by sea’ in relation to the motifs they had chosen. Pesce’s concept of a vertebra shape referred to life and existence on this planet – past, present and future. She placed the shape on paintings of golden sand, blue water and sky. Puth’s works were inspired by the relationship of the sea and sky and the constant change in colour and shape of these two elements. Particular words from the national anthem were placed in Brittain’s works to convey concerns about climate change, border protection policies and indigenous issues. Jones saw the colours of golden sand, blue sea and white surf as defining the Australian way of life and expressed a desire to see these incorporated in an ‘independent Australia’ flag design. Er overlaid the letters spelling out AUSTRALIA on her paintings depicting where land meets sea. The shape of the Australian continent was repeated in all of Wohlfahrt’s works and references to weather told of climate and climate change in the Southern Hemisphere. MacAulay’s Girt By Sea pieces were concerned with the idea of Australians surveying the sea from the beaches. She used the stylised surf lifesaver’s chair to represent the perceived need for vigilance; recognising the dangers posed by the sea itself from sharks, rips and tidal waves; and referencing political concerns such as watching for boat people, and dealing with quarantine issues and the importation of drugs and illegal products.

There was no restriction on the materials that could be used in the collaborative work. This allowed the artists to consider for themselves the most appropriate material to convey their ideas. All artists used paint in some form but other materials ranged from glitter, sponge, found manufactured objects, photographs, newspaper cuttings, and shells. Artists also chose whether to make any one of the works as portrait or landscape format. In the end, eleven of the works were in portrait format. This introduced some variety in the hanging at the gallery.

The hanging of the work was the final challenge in the collaborative process as the artists discussed the most appropriate way to show the pieces. At that point there was no individual ownership of the separate pieces. It was clearly a single work by a group of artists in collaboration. Any decisions made about the hanging were from a curatorial point of view.

As the artists were required to envigilate the exhibition, there were many opportunities to talk to visitors about the collaborative work. The experience of speaking to visitors about each other’s work deepened their own appreciation for, and enjoyment of, the work as a whole. The artists agreed that individual pieces of the work should be sold separately and all proceeds were directed to the Sydney Art Exchange rather than to the individual artists.