Collaboration and Collectivity have become central methods of advancing contemporary art. Artists associations, groups, networks, partnerships, and coalitions are terms often mentioned in light of contemporary art. As such, collaboration and collectivity become generic names used when an artist chooses not to work alone, but to come together and co-work with other artists. The collaboration may also entail an artist cooperating with members of a certain community as they all work to realize the objectives of a given project. The slight difference between cooperation and participation comes in the extent of the controls between the parties involved. The collaboration entails a mutual benefit for the parties or partners involved while in participation members largely shape the unfolding situation with the framework being defined by the artist. Some artists in the contemporary society collaborate with the aim of achieving a project while in other case it is a medium of completion.
Cooperation among artist follows in the directives given by Sennett. Sennett states that the most important aspect in cooperation is dialogue, not debate, and mutuality rather than unity. He also asserts that he views a workshop acting as the site and institution where cooperation based on mutuality and dialogue can be sustained. In line with this, artists can collaborate and begin by communicating openly the intentions and thoughts about the future of their artistic goals. As such, they will be in a position to collaborate in a manner that brings about mutual benefits to themselves and their audiences.
The importance of collaboration between artists in contemporary society gains support from similar collaborations in the past years. For instance, ancient brick makers and the goldsmiths of the renaissance period all collaborated with artists and gained massive impacts. The printing presses of London were also famous for their collaboration with artists such as cartoonists and this gave them greater voice to challenge the authorities and call for responsible leadership systems.
Sennett notes that there exist some deficiencies in some historical systems which contemporary artist need to address. He cites there, there is a gap between practice and theory, technique and expression, maker and user and it is these deficiencies that cooperation between artists is likely to bridge. Collaboration is expected to yield more ways of using tools, thinking about materials and organizing work to achieve more efficiency in communicating complex messages.
Craftsmen and artists are known to follow a basic human instinct- doing a job well for its own sake. Sennett argues that although industrial revolution has brought about a culture where people do not tend to do their jobs as well as they need to, artists and craftsmen have maintained their dedication to their work. As such, they seek any avenues to better themselves and to cope with the demands of the contemporary society by entering into collaboration with each other and with the societies for which they make art. Sennett notes the importance of artists collaborating is of equal if not greater importance than that of doctors, computer programmers and teachers since artists are the voice of the people. Artists cross borders and speak to an on behalf of the members and people from other professions. Moreover, artists say painters, photographers, and fine artists can collaborate with one of the professions and become its voice. They can create artworks to spread across print and electronic media in the contemporary world, thereby articulating the issues in a clearer and more effective manner.
Collaboration in contemporary art dates back to the 1960s when artists began to think collectively. They were prompted by issues of their involvement in political issues and the social activism where they were seen as clear and loud voices to not only speak to the masses but also speak on behalf of the masses. Lone artists were less effective in reaching out to the people, but the effect brought about by collaborating artists was immense, effective and sustainable. As artists sought ways of knowledge production, they found it worthy to come together by pulling resources and ideas for their own good and that of the wider society. In the 1960s, the artists achieved collaborated along their genres say, painters, sculptors, fine artists, and decorators among others.
There are classic examples of collaboration between artists. The collaboration between Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore stands out. When the two were students at the Department of Sculpture at St. Martins school of Art in London, they decided to cooperate and act as one artist. In 1969, the sang a famous song “Underneath the Arches” and later made a piece they called the Singing Sculpture which became very successful over the next five years as the pair presented it around the world. So successful was their work that it became hard to distinguish between their individual contributions to a painting yet the end product was always hit with audiences across the world. The duo has been very successful in effecting social issues and communicating controversial issues such as male prostitution, homosexuality, AIDS, and religion.
In modern times, the successful collaboration between George and Gilbert is evidenced by their overwhelming presence at London’s Tate Modern. The duo has a major exhibition in their honor. The two deserve recognition across the world of contemporary art because they also inspired many other artists to collaborate and out their ideas into one. Jake and Dinos Chapman are artists that have excelled after they followed in the footsteps of Gilbert and George.
Collaboration between artists can also help raise the economic, aesthetic and social value of a given work. For instance the collaboration of Jake and Dinos Chapman, who purchased a full set of Goya's 80 etchings titled Disasters of War for £25,000. The duo did so with the intention of creating another artwork from the current one. They claim to have rectified the painting by adding colored images to the previous black and white ones by Goya. They also added some helmets bearing swastikas on the heads of characters. Later, they presented the new artwork under the title the rape of creativity and an outrage from several art critics ensued. The artists accused Jake and Dinos of vandalism. The collaboration between the two helped them to create value for the work and justify their position. Economically, each of the new etchings sold for £13,500 and through this they rightly argued that it could not amount to vandalism when one or more artists genuinely purchase a piece of art and add value to it years after an artwork has exhausted intellectual property protections. The Chapmans were also able to use historical evidence quoting the case of Robert Rauschenberg who erased a drawing belonging to Willem de Kooning in 1953. The collaboration between the Chapman brothers was instrumental in the winning of the 2003 high-profile allegation of vandalism.
Collaboration and collectivity among artists are likely to enrich art at a more rapid and sustainable pace. Collaborations between contemporary artists will be largely conceptual or experimental. Historically it has been shown that artists collaborated largely for the two reasons. All the core impressionists such as Picasso, Monet, Sisley and Renoir cooperated to experiment with come art forms, and they succeeded greatly. All the artists who collaborated as the Cubists and Fauves were conceptual. In addition, all those who collaborated as abstract expressionists were also experimental and so were the Ritcher and Pole. The commonest thing about all these collaborations and what makes them important in this discussion was the immense success they enjoyed upon collaborating.
Contemporary artists who pursue collaborations and go ahead to do some new experimentation achieve great success. They can stir the art world and draw to themselves a new breed of followers who are youthful and different from the art lovers of the yesteryears. For instance, Chicago's Zhou brothers create a sculpture based on a combination of natural and social sciences. The issue will be for artists to collaborate and pursue different lines away front the common, and this will draw many people to contemporary art. It will be a huge gain economically for the artists, and those reliant on the industry, most important is that art will be elevated on a higher pedestal from where it can communicate diverse messages to different people and do so with greater efficiency. In the final analysis, this will lead to transformations of socials as vices and wrongs will be addressed as they crop up.
When there is collaboration between artists, it serves as an opportunity for the less experienced artists to learn from the experienced ones. The upcoming artist gets to learn through apprentice and practice under the close tutorship from a more experienced one, and this hastens the process of developing artists. Moreover, the upcoming artist is likely to feel challenged and work harder to become like their partners or even more. The experienced partners will also be in a better position to hone their skills since they too can learn from their partners.
There is a huge opportunity for artists to collaborate and fight stubborn social evils such as racism in sports. There is significant racism in football, and it is an opportunity for artists from different races to team up and create artworks that fight these and other social evils and controversies. Also, artists from different sexual orientations can also collaborate and create artworks to call for tolerance between people of divergent opinion and beliefs when it comes to such issues. The collaborations can address the numerous controversies prevalent in the contemporary world courtesy of increased democratic space and the need for personal identity.
Contemporary artists will be compelled to collaborate given the scale of the activities that they plan or need to accomplish. For instance, Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, both students at the Rhode Island school of Design (RISD) were compelled to collaborate because each wanted an artwork that would communicate to their target audience young people. Their work was intellectually and physically draining since it combined the genres of video, sculpture and installation. The pair who has now collaborated for more than ten years and within that time they have achieved great success attaining recognition at huge exhibitions in Paris.
Although there are numerous benefits of collaboration among artists, there are also critical challenges. The main one is how to hand artist’s egos. There are many ego-drive artists and they find it difficult to invite other artists into their work. They deem art to be a private affair and are right to argue in that manner. Moreover, there are challenges in the sharing of credit when a work done under collaboration has gained popularity. Artists need to share such credit equally to safeguard the images of each other the general public. However, contemporary artists who wish to conquer more territories and become effective vessels to communicate to masses need to collaborate. Collaboration enriches thoughts and the expression of such thoughts.
Conclusion
Artists need for collaboration has gained a lot of importance in the contemporary society. Sennett shows the importance of cooperation in the achievement of mutual goals. In line with this, artists need to come together and evaluate their intentions, the messages which to convey to the public, the complexities of handling the young generation and the economic aspects involved. Once they have verified their intentions and plans match they can collaborate. The greatest examples of successful collaborations in recent years are that between Jake and Dinos Chapman as well as an earlier collaboration between Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore. These among many others have shown contemporary artists the importance of collaborating and maintaining such collaboration by working on challenges such as taking egos and sharing credit equally for popular works.
References
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Macêdo, S. (1999). Collaboration in Art: Sharing the Space of One? Retrieved April 14, 2016, from http://www.silvanamacedo.com/MAdissertation.pdf
Pope, C., & Galenson, D. (2012, October 2). Collaboration in Art (II). Retrieved April 14, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-galenson/collaboration-in-art-ii_b_1930264.html
Sennett, R. (2012). Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation. Yale University Press.
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