I thought I would go ahead and bring up the first idea for a show that I have been playing around with. I'm not attached to the idea at all - it's more of a thought exercise than anything, so feel free to add comments/rip it apart. If this is too Charlie Kaufman-esque please tell me - but what would a collaborative art show look like if it was an art show about making art.
This seems trite and simple at first, but when fleshed out would actually be conceptually endless. I'm not talking about just printing the posts from this blog and framing them, or making videos of us making art, or showing step A, B, and C of our pieces. I'm talking about really exploring and deconstructing the process conceptually and trying to see how that would manifest visually. I mean the meta shit has been around for hundreds of years - mostly in plays and movies I suppose. The first example that comes to my mind is Synecdoche, New York. It ranges from Midsummers Night Dream and through to more mainstream examples like 30 Rock. I'm sure there are a million better examples. In those examples it's explicitly clear that it is a "show" about a "show" or a "play" within a "play." I'm just wondering if there is a more abstract (yuck word) or conceptual way of exploring this same idea.
I may be bringing up a nearly impossible idea, but I think it's worth talking about at least. Especially if we are a group of artists trying to get together to make some sort of something. Maybe making it means more than the actual product. Could making it and the made be the same?
I'm sure there are many examples of this concept in the A(capital a)rt canon - I'm sure the rest of you could point out better examples, but I thought I would start the conversation.
I like it. What about more specifically thinking of the idea of making work collaboratively, or making work in tandem. I feel like this would get to some of the issues you have already brought up surrounding authorship and inspiration.
ReplyDeleteThis just got me thinking - could we collaborate on a piece - like not just talk about work but literally make a piece - in the vein of 'postal service'- over the internet just to see what that would be like. Like how weird is it that it is September 7th for me, and September 6th for you. And no, I am not stoned.
ReplyDeleteI can't sleep so I am drinking whiskey and looking at the Internet on my iPod. Sigh. The Sao paulo biennial is going on so the past few days I have been going. The y have August Sanders people of the 20th century work, hundreds of prints so I go get lost in them. There is also some other nice work that made me think of many of you. Hunter you should look at this guys" work:
ReplyDeleteMichel Aubry, heis French.
Ilene segalove also had this work called History of the American 20th century that really reminded me of some of the black and Whitt e mIxed media collages that Lauren had been workig on.
The Aubry website is sort of hard to navigate hunter but his stuff is great. Really over the top and mixed media . Some of his costumes reminded me of some self portraits you did a while back.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of meta meta meta. I suppose a theme or central idea is a nice idea.. I am curious since so much time has passed what it might look like if we were all kind of blind to it and just put up work. Maybe it's A god awful idea. We should probably have a central idea or point to the show, but does it have to be something concrete? Could it be an arbitrary abstract
Thing like "people I used to talk about art with?"
I am feeling the whiskey now.
Ggggggeorge: Michel Aubry's website is super hard to navigate. Maybe I should ask him if he needs me to redesign it for him. I do really like the way he works with clothing/fabric. I really liked the tapestry installation.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of seeing what our work looks like together (without being in critiques with each other for a couple years.) There might be some interesting ways to do this electronically via the web (actually I guess this is sort of what we are doing with the blog.) Just by posting recent work up here we could probably find a central theme within it. I don't like the idea of a concrete theme like "sinners vs saints" or "tomfoolery: an exhibition on silly art" or "Death and Resurrection: An exploration into the duality of artist's personalities." I think a more abstract theme is definitely the way to go. "People I used to talk about art with?" is nice. So is "we like making pictures together." I feel like if we start with an abstract concept, it will slowly manifest itself into something more interesting.
Kate: I've thought about the "postal service" concept a lot. I like the idea of collaborating and discussing our own personal work at the same time. I think there are a couple of ways to start the ball rolling on the collaborating thing. It would be best if we started off with "easy" "excercises." There is always the classic exquisite corpse thing. I also think it would be interesting to do little "assignments" (ugh you're right. we need to stop it with the quotes thing. It just adds the perfect amount of connotation to things.) But yeah. It would be cool to do a couple of things like that just to get the ball rolling. Things that would be interesting, generate ideas, but aren't necessarily extremely time consuming.
ReplyDeleteOkay, okay, okay. Holy shit, I've missed a lot. I guess I forgot to keep up with the comments that came after the initial idea. Sorry I haven't responded until now. I'm starting to feel the weight of the semester peppered with personal bullshit and I've been a little distracted. So, the idea of making a collaborative show and about discussing the dynamic of a collaborative effort has been dominating my thoughts lately as this is what is going on in Adrienne's class right now. Fellini's 8 1/2. It's perfect and hilarious and sad and frustrating and absurd. This feels like exactly what my class is doing at the moment. And this is all for a show that opens the 1st of Oct. No pressure. This isn't the same thing that we are doing here, though. We have a wide open area to work with and no deadline and so time to decide what we want from it. Collaboration is interesting to me, but I also don't know how to do it outside of the kind of collaboration that happens when we critique each other's work and the work is then ultimately influenced by one another and a kind of cohesion just occurs like our last show. But, I don't know how to intentionally make a collaborative thing. But we have the freedom to fuck around with that stuff and to just play with things and that's nice. I don't think I actually succeeded in saying anything just then, but unfortunately don't have time to flesh out my thoughts anymore because I have to go to class. I'll try to think more about it and get back to you with something more intelligible. I'm glad it seems like we all thought of Postal Service cause I was absolutely thinking that from the beginning. Nice. Cohesion already.
ReplyDeleteCliff: How is the show going in Adrienne's class? How does it differ from your experience in "the" group?
ReplyDeleteIt might be interesting for you to keep us updated with the progress of that show on this blog, just to see how it unfolds and how it compares to the way we collaborate as a group. Does that make sense to anyone else? You have the advantage of having a crash course in super quick collaboration, with a group you aren't as connected with. You could use what went right/wrong with that to help us out.
I agree that it is difficult to intentionally make a collaborative piece. I think the best collaborations don't start out that way. I think the idea of "play with things" and "fuck around with that stuff" is exactly the way we should go. We can just throw ideas back and forth, critique our work, maybe fool around with quick little collaborations, and see what happens from there.
I finally arrived again in the world of the interwebs, wifi & pushing buttons that arbt really even buttons a d are too small fir my thumbs anyway. So, are we talking about the us postal service? Like mailing a piece or pieces back a d forth or to wherever we happen ton be--or did this whole conversation go waaayyy over my head? Could be, I can be incredibly slow to things sometime. Anyway, if so, I really like the sheer absurdity ofthe idea. It might be intereting to have a collaborative piece like that as well as individual work--I am still curious as to whether there might exist a common thread in all our work ESP. After so much time has past.
ReplyDeleteDid you figure out Joe to see aubry's work hunter? In the sP biennial I stumbled in on a performance where he had young women dressed in the exmilitary garb walk in single file around the whole building. Did I mention that when inwas drunk above?
Cliff, I sort of agree:'I don't k own how to begin to work on a collaborative piece or how to go about it in a way that doesn't seem entirely corny, played out, or exquisite corpse- like(not that exquisit corpses arent cool or an intereting exercise).
Also 81/2 was one of those films that really blew me Out of the water. Maybe we could channel that. What is this other group like? I too wanto hear about the show. Keep us posted.
I am now in rio de janiero staying on a boat that is a repilca of a 19th century ship that Darwin used--pretty cool huh?.. I'll be around for a week ten again into the wonderful black hole of self propelled journeying across the sweaty northeast of brazil. Hasta
For clarity - by 'the postal service' we meant the music group, "I am finally seeing, why I was the one worth leaving . . . " (that was me singing). So I guess indirectly you are right, we did mean using the US postal service, but not literally. I think I stopped making sense a while ago, sorry.
ReplyDeleteAnyway.
Dude, what are you doing on Darwin's boat? Yes, that is pretty cool.
I demand pictures of the boat. Have I gone on my boat rant? I really like boats.
ReplyDeleteAnd whaling. And the 19th century.
Wait. . . do we get to hear the boat rant? Or was that the extent of it?
ReplyDelete