The Ecosystem of Collaboration - Artist as Art Piece
Disciplines
Interactive Arts | Painting | Sculpture
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Collaboration in the visual arts has presented itself in many ways ranging from the common exquisite corpse games in schools to grand scale environmental works like Christo and Jeanne Claude’s “Running Fence.” In either context, multiple individuals with different talents contribute to a shared artistic outcome. Performance-oriented collaborations involve the participants seeing themselves as artist, collaborator, and the art medium. These overlapping identities create a space where ideas are shared, and the creativity of each participant amplifies that of the rest. Collaborations often result in a completed visual product, but the most important element in collaborative art is the experience of the participants themselves. The artists' movements and ideas are recorded in the collaboration as it happens; the finished product merely keeps a record of that experience. For this reason, collaborative art can be performance art in the moments of its creation. Through the research of performative and collaborative projects such as Yves Klein’s “Anthropometries'' and performances such as Marina Abramovic’s "The Artist Is Present", my goal is to stage and document three different collaborative projects that explore the cultivation of creativity. These collaborative performances will include a diverse and inclusive range of participants. Additionally, these projects will be staged in public spaces to bring art into the lives of passerby’s outside of the usual museum setting. The result will be a presentation of these collaborative art projects, discussing the connections those projects have to art history, and the artistic value that staging future collaborative artworks could have on the art community.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
COTA - Art and Design
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Jonathan Fisher
The Ecosystem of Collaboration - Artist as Art Piece
Collaboration in the visual arts has presented itself in many ways ranging from the common exquisite corpse games in schools to grand scale environmental works like Christo and Jeanne Claude’s “Running Fence.” In either context, multiple individuals with different talents contribute to a shared artistic outcome. Performance-oriented collaborations involve the participants seeing themselves as artist, collaborator, and the art medium. These overlapping identities create a space where ideas are shared, and the creativity of each participant amplifies that of the rest. Collaborations often result in a completed visual product, but the most important element in collaborative art is the experience of the participants themselves. The artists' movements and ideas are recorded in the collaboration as it happens; the finished product merely keeps a record of that experience. For this reason, collaborative art can be performance art in the moments of its creation. Through the research of performative and collaborative projects such as Yves Klein’s “Anthropometries'' and performances such as Marina Abramovic’s "The Artist Is Present", my goal is to stage and document three different collaborative projects that explore the cultivation of creativity. These collaborative performances will include a diverse and inclusive range of participants. Additionally, these projects will be staged in public spaces to bring art into the lives of passerby’s outside of the usual museum setting. The result will be a presentation of these collaborative art projects, discussing the connections those projects have to art history, and the artistic value that staging future collaborative artworks could have on the art community.