• A KURÁTORI GYAKORLAT ÉS DISZKURZUS SZÓTÁRA
  • Bemutatási mód
  • Diszkurzivitás
  • Együttműködésen alapuló művészeti gyakorlatok
  • Fehér kocka
  • Finanszírozás
  • Interpretáció
  • Kiállított kultúrák
  • Kurátori (szemlélet)
  • Oktatási fordulat
  • Performatív kurátori gyakorlatok
  • Részvételen alapuló művészeti gyakorlatok
  • Szerzőség
  • Új muzeológia

• Esettanulmányok

• Kiállítás (Budapest)

• Megjelenések

• Rólunk

• CURATORIAL DICTIONARY
  • Exhibition display
  • Discursivity
  • Collaboration
  • White cube
  • Funding
  • Interpretation
  • Exhibiting cultures
  • Curatorial
  • Educational turn
  • Performativity
  • Participation
  • Authorship
  • New museology

• Case Studies

• An Exhibition (Budapest)

• Appearances

• About

COLLABORATION [1]

Collaboration is the generic name for artworks, exhibitions, or projects, in which, instead of one person (artist, curator), a group of people work and develop a concept together. [2] Beyond collaboration, other terms are also used—according to the relationship between the participants and the working methodologies—, including cooperation, interaction, collective act, or participatory practices (~participation). As these concepts signify methods often in overlap with each other, they are referred to by synonymous concepts. Collaboration can take place between artists (artists’ groups), curators (collective curating); furthermore, various partners active outside the contemporary art scene can also be involved. There can be collaboration between an artist and members of a community—invited by the artist—when they all participate in realizing a particular project. The artist can also invite the audience to collaborate, which is mainly referred to with the notion of participation (~participation).

Collaboration is an open-ended concept that predominantly offers two ways for participation. In the case of cooperation, based on the notion of collaboration, there is a mutual benefit of the partners. However, with participation, members may only shape the unfolding of a situation, the framework of which is predefined by the artist or someone else. [3] One needs to differentiate the situation when collaboration is a means of realizing the project (e.g. community projects) from that when collaboration is the medium of completion (such as art works associated with the concept of relational aesthetics) (~participation ~performativity).

Antecedents of collaborative practices date back to the 1960s, when the collective thinking of artists—including political engagement and activist endeavors—was linked first and foremost to finding alternative ways of knowledge production. [4] Over the same period, art groups, instead of accentuating the authorial position of the individual, started working in genres most appropriate to collective authorship (performance, happening, action). [5] Nowadays, artists interested in collaboration, rather than working within the author-centered modernist tradition of creating autonomous art objects, they look to projects based on the active participation of the audience. Thanks to global networks, these projects may surpass geographical borders, and can even consist of collaborative phases on virtual levels. [6]

The practice of collaboration can also be connected to the emergence of the curator and his/her position as an author at the end of the 1960s. This change is indicated not only by the exhibition’s transformation into a medium (that is, into a genre on its own terms) (~interpretation), but also by the reworked disposition and display of exhibitions. (~exhibition display~discursivity). Collaboration between an artist and a curator is based on their shared authorial position. The artist does not create the art work for a commission; instead, he/she works with a curator within or maybe outside the institutionalized framework of collaboration, towards a mutually set objective (~performativity). In the joint “creative space,” the artist and the curator works together as equal partners and authors (collaborauteurs), in a constant dialogue. [7] (~curatorial). Nevertheless, collaboration between artists and curators is not without collisions. [8] Those questioning the curator’s status as an author, criticize foremost the strengthening power position of the curator.[9]

Working processes based on collective creativity may be interpreted not only through object-based forms. [10] The integration of discursive elements—reflecting on various cultural and socio-political issues—into the tool kit of critical art practices, extended the concept of collaboration with new terms, such as dialogical art, conversational art, littoral art, new genre public art, educational turn, discursivity (~educational turn~discursivity). [11] Collectivity, however, is not solely a method for working together, for instance, on realizing an exhibition. It is also a pertinent alternative strategy for a critical standpoint on the institutions of art, which is, in this case, a critique of the single artist genius that is still prevalent on the art markets. Some curatorial groups—such as WHW (What, How & for Whom)—considers collectivity furthermore a political stance. [12] In the case of collaboration between curators (collective curating), the curatorial vision is likewise formed by multiple voices, and, hence, co-authorship, as well as shared decision-making and responsibility are accentuated during the realization of the project. One can see nowadays more and more curatorial initiations which are in line with the notion that the political aspect and the activist practice contemporary art revolve around the concepts of self-organization and collaboration. [13]

Despite the growing number of collaborative practices, there are also critical voices with regards to the structures and motivations of these very practices. For instance, who can be viewed as an author within a project realized in cooperation with immigrants? Who defines, and how, what lines of action to take and what methods to use? [14] (~participation). The appropriation of various groups for artistic ends and (the frequent) devolvement of responsibility are not legitimized by social responsibility and democratic methods promoted in the name of collaboration. Ethical considerations—that are seen as important aspects of a project—do not necessarily override aesthetical criteria. [15]

 

Eszter Lázár

 

References and Further Readings

Bishop, Claire
2006  The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents.Artforum February, 2006: 178-183.
2012 Artifical Hells. London, Verso

René Block, Angelika Nollert eds.
2005 Collective Creativity (exh. cat.) Kassel, Münich, Frankfurt am Main, Kunsthalle Fridericianum Siemenas Arts Program, Revolver

Buren, Daniel
2004 Where are the Artists? (2004) / Exhibition of an Exhibition (1972). In Jens Hoffmann ed. The Next Documenta Should Be Curated by an Artist, Frankfurt am Main, Revolver, 2004, 26–31. See online: e-flux.com, E-flux, Web, 2003. márc. 28.  http://www.e-flux.com/projects/next_doc/d_buren_printable.html

Daniel Buren
2010/1972 “Exposition d’une exposition / Ausstellung einer Ausstellung” (Exhibition of an Exhibition). Documenta 5, Kassel. In Elena Filipovic, Marieke Van Hal, Solveig Øvstebø (eds.) The Biennial Reader. Bergenés Ostfildern-Ruit: Bergen Kunsthall és Hatje Cantz. 

Collective Curating, Manifesta Journal, Journal of Contemporary Curatorship, 2008/2010, Manifesta Foundation, Amsterdam

Stine Hebert, Anne Szefer Karlsen eds.
2013 Self-organised. London, Bergen, Open Editions, Hordaland Art Centre

Kester, Grant
2004 Conversation Pieces. University of California Press, Berkley

Krasztev Péter – Jan Van Til
2013 A politikai művészet új hulláma Magyarországon. In: Krasztev Péter – Jan Van Til szerk. Tarka ellenállás. Kézikönyv rebelliseknek és békéseknek. Napvilág Kiadó, Budapest, 378-408. 

Kravagna, Christian
1998 Models of Participatory Practice http://republicart.net/disc/aap/kravagna01_en.htm

Lind, Maria
2007 The Collaborative Turn. In: Johanna Billing – Lars Nilsson szerk. Taking the Matter lnto Common Hands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices. Black Dog Publishing, London.
2009 Complications: On Collaboration, Agency and Contemporary Art. In: Nina Möntmann szerk. New Communities. The Power Plant and Public Books, Toronto

O’ Neill, Paul
2010 Beyond Group Practice. Manifesta Journal—Collective Curating 8/ 2010,  37-45.

Önol, Isin
2010 Political involvement as a Basis for Collaboration – Interview with What, How and for Whom, Curatorial Collective and directors of Gallery Nova, Zagreb, ON-CURATING 5/2010, on-curating.org On-Curating. Web. 2013. márc. 12. 
http://www.on-curating.org/documents/oncurating_issue_0510.pdf

Park, Gill
2008 A Space to talk: Curator, Artist, Collaborauteur. axisweb.org Axis Web. 2013. márc. 25. http://www.axisweb.org/dlFull.aspx?ESSAYID=122

Green, Charles
2001 The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism, New South Publishing
Against Artist. collabarts.org. Collaborative Arts – Conversations on Collaborative Arts Practice. Web. 2013. márc. 12. http://collabarts.org/?p=5  
Collaboration as Symptom. collabarts.org. Collaborative Arts – Conversations on Collaborative Arts Practice. Web. 2013. márc. 12. http://collabarts.org/?p=4 

Papastergiadis, Nikos
The Global Need for Collaboration. collabarts.org. Collaborative Arts – Conversations on Collaborative Arts Practice. Web. 2013. márc. 12. http://collabarts.org/?p=201

Roberts, John – Wright Stephen eds.
2004 Art and Collaboration. Third Text, Volume 18, Issue 6

Rogoff, Irit
Production Lines. collabarts.org. Collaborative Arts – Conversations on Collaborative Arts Practice. Web. 2013. márc. 12. http://collabarts.org/?p=69 

Anton Vidokle
2010 Art Without Artists? e-flux Journal 16/2010, e-flux.com, e-flux, Web. 2012. szept. 12.  http://www.e-flux.com/journal/art-without-artists/