TH E COLLABORATIVE TU RNSelected by Beatrice von Bismarck

This text evolved out of the two-part symposium TAKING THEMATTER INTO COMMON HANDS, which Johanna Billing, LarsNilsson, and myself co-curated at laspis in Stockholm, in the fall of2005. The title was a conscious play with language-grammaticallyincorrect, yet embodying a form of "self-organization." For thesymposium, the aftist Michael Beutler redesigned the project studio,constructing simple wooden benches in two different heights andadding brightly colored cushions. They were arranged to create amultidirectional situation, as opposed to the typical frontal setup.Following the symposium, the benches were given away to membersof the audience.

The text first appeared in the book Taking the Matter lnto CommonHands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices, whichdocuments the symposium and includes contributions by allparticipants. The book was edited by Johanna Billing, Lars Nilsson,and myself, and designeO Oy ÂOate. lt was published by Black DogPublishing in2OO7.

I77. THECOLLABOBATIVETUBN

The project studio allaspis, designed byMichael Beutler.

Arlists and co-curatorsLars Nilsson and JohannaBilling in the audience atthe symposium.

Video conferencewith Henriette Heise,of Copenhagen FreeUniversity.

One of the benchesfrom the symposium,which ended up in PiaSandström's studio.

178 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING 179 THECOLLABORATIVETURN

THE COLLABORATIVE TURN

The story is well known: in 1999, two Paris-based aftists, PierreHuyghe and Philippe Parreno, acquired the rights to a Mangacharacter from the Japanese agency Kworks for 46,000 yen. Normally,such characters are sold to anime and videogame companies withoutthe time to create their own. This character has a name-Annlee-anda face, and she belongs in the production companies' ample inventoryof peripheral figures. For that reason, she is also one of the cheapest.With only a name and a two-dimensional face, she is destined todisappear from any story in which she happens to land. The artists,however, have other plans. After having redeemed the figure-aninsignificant extra in the popular commercial cultural arena-theyintroduce it to a new world, a mixed economy: contemporary art.Togethe¡ they draw on and establish a network of artists and othercultural producers, inviting each to fill the empty shell of Annleewith content, via video or other forms of aft. The pafticipants shapeepisodes that can function as independent artworks, together formingnot only a collaborative art project and an exhibition, but a neworder of identity as well. ln the process, a temporary community ofseventeen persons is created.

No Ghost Just a Shell was a project-specific collaboration between aloose network of friends and colleagues, in which the artists gatheredtogether around a shared interest-"a sign around which a communityhas established itself," as Huyghe has suggested-but also aphenomenon around which a particular energy has crystallized.lHowever, the aim was at the same time to give this "flashing sign"certain rights. After a grand farewell fireworks display, and equippedwith a casket made from IKEA furniture parts, Annlee was allowed topass away after four years. ln conjunction with her demise, Huygheand Parreno handed over their rights to Annlee to a newly formedassociation in exchange for one euro. This association guaranteedthat the image of Annlee would never appear again in anything other

1. Piere Huyghe, Stefan Kalmáf, Ph¡l¡ppe Pareno, Beatrix RrJf, and Hans Ulrich Obrisi, "ConveHt¡ons," inNo Ghost Just a Shell, eds. Piere Huyghe and Philippe Pileno (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung WallherKönig, 2003), 17.

.I81. THE COLLABORAÏVE TUBN

than what was created prior to the transference of rights.2 Thisparticular collaboration is now over.

No Ghost Just a shet is specific for having invorved concrete popurarculture and commercialism, for questioning tn" production anåreproduction of identity. The project inscribes itserf in the rogic of theart market, but confuses it at the same time-it is arguabry ihe firstexample of an extensive coilaborative art project presentei as a groupexhibition to be bought in its entirety by a museum.3 The projectcombines more idearistic notions of sharing with neoriberar rogicsof networking and outsourcing. rt consciouiry situates itserf aitheintersection of the sensibirities of post-'1 96g sociar movements andhardcore post-Fordist mechanisms, praying out the probrematics andcontestations of each.

Its structure ends up like Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari,s rhizomes,and it certainry shares some of the characteristics of Michaer Hardtand Antonio Negri,s understanding of the ,,common.,, No GhostJust a shell's "promiscuous" creation story-its form and content,its degree of complexity and contradiction, the way in which itsimultaneously touches upon the fetish character and the opensources of contemporary art-makes it something of a key project.aMoreover, No Ghost Just a sheil is probabry one of the most notabrecollaborative adworks to have emerged over the last decade.

COLLABORATION NOW AND THENNo Ghost Just a Shell is only one of many art projects in whichcollaboration is central, and many other collaborative methodsand projects are frourishing in contemp orary arrtoday. Notions ofartist groupings, circres, associations, networks,

"onit"il"tion.,partnerships, alliances, coalitions, contexts, and teams are allbuzzing in the air. However, cooperation and coilaboration in thecontext of art is by no means new. On the contrary its genealogy is

2 ltisalittleunclearexactlywhatthetwoin¡tiatorsconsidertobecontribut¡onstothep@jectasawhole lnaddition to video sequences by Huyghe, Parreno, Liam Gillick, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, the projectincludes the posters of paris-based designers M/M (which arso function as wa,paper designec especiaryfor the videos); videos by François curret, pierre Joseph, ¡,4ehdi Berhaj Kacem, F¡rkrit riravanija, [,4erikohanian; paintings by Joe scanran, Henri Barande, and Richard phi¡rj;s; objects by Angela Builoch and Imkewagner; music by Anna Lena vaney; a maguine by Anna Fleury with texts by the fiction writer Kathryn Davis,immunology researcher Jean-c¡aude Ameisen, art historian Paurice pianzota, biologist and philosopher lsraelRosenfield' art historian N'4olly Nesbit' art critìc Jan veruoert, curator Hans ulrich obrist, philosopher ¡,4aurizioLùatato, as well as a contract created by the lawyer Luc Saucier

3 One complete edition is now in the collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven4 Jan Veruoert, "copyright, Ghosts and commodity Fetishism,,, in No Ghost Just a shelt, op cir ,1g4_g2

182 SELECTÊD MARIA LIND WRITING

long and complex, and includes a number of different approachesto organizing artistic work and aesthetics. lt extends from Rubensand other baroque artists' hierarchical large-scale studios (whichwere lucrative businesses) to surrealist group experiments, fromconstructivist theater projects to Fluxus games and Andy Warhol'spseudo-industrial Factory.s lt has also been argued that collaborationwas crucial in modernism's transition to postmodernism, particularlysince the advent of conceptualism in the late 1960s. During thefollowing decade, redefinitions of ar1 tended to go hand in hand withcollaborative practices.6

According to the curator Angelika Nollert, the Nazarenes in Romewere the first group of artists known to work closely together, betweenaround 1810-1830. She rightly points out that this type of artisticcollaboration was first to develop a conscious strategy when theguilds disappeared and the notion of the romantic (individual) artistcame to the fore.7 At the same time, it is useful to underline theobvious, as Brian Holmes does, in suggesting that even the lone artistin his or her studio is dependent upon contributions from others.s Thisis especially true for many mde artists who have managed to rely onmore or less invisible suppod from surrounding women.

This text, however, is about collaboration-cases in which someform of conscious partnership takes place through interaction,parlicipation, group activity, or other kinds of intentional exchangethrough processes of "working together." lt will look at someattempted formulations of collaborative practices in contemporary arTfrom around the mid-1 990s, as well as recent developments in thestructures and motivations behind collaboration. These collaborationscan occur between people who are often, but not always, artists, aswell as between artists and people from other fields altogether. Theforrner suggests collaboration to have been consistently present in theaft of the last twenty years, having only entered the mainstream fairlyrecently. The latter shows a pronounced affinity with activism andother ways of gathering together around shared concerns, as well asa marked interest in alternative ways of producing knowledge.

5. See Ny'arion Piffer Damiani, "Get Together: Kunst als Teamwork" in Get Together: Kunst als Teamwork, exhcat (Vienna: Kusthalle Wen, 1999)6 Charles Green, The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism (Ì\4inneapolìs:

Univers¡ty of Minnesota Press, 2001)7, Angel¡ka Nol¡ert, "Art ls Life, and Life ls Art," ¡n Collective Creat¡v¡ty, exh. cat (Kassel: KunsthalleFridericianum, 2005)8 Brìan Holmes, "Artist¡c Autonomy and the Communicat¡on Society," Third Text, no 1 8 (November 2004): 555

^

Together with René Block, Nollert has argued that these newlyproliferating collaborations of various sorls-between arlists andadists, artists and curators, artists and others_began around1990.s They often appear as arternatives to the predominant focuson the individual so often found in the field of aft, as an instrumentfor challenging both arlistic identity and authorship. The variouscollaborations also tend to constitute a response to specific-attimes local-situations, and they constanfly run the risk of beingswallowed up and incorporated into the very systems against whichthey react. There are also examples of willful immersion, the criticand curator Gregory sholette claims that groups such as Gelatin andDearraindrop satisfy the needs of entertainment culture by separatingthe image of collectivist art from its history of political radicalism. Theindividualistic art world can thus bond with its antithesis, drawing fromits grooviness.lo.

ln a variety of symposia, conferences, colloquia, exhibitions, andpublications over the last few years, the form and structure of thesecollaborative and collective activities have been presented, examined,and called into question: their short-term and long-term workroutines; how they spread attention across various subjects, methods,lifestyles, and political orientations; how they hope for some kind ofemancipation; the obstacles they encounter; and, last but not least,what sort of satisfaction results from working in a group.l1

I René Block and Angetika Noilert, ,,Collective Creativity,,' in Cot¡ective Creativity, op c¡t10 Gregory Sholette, "lntroducing lnsouciant Art Collectives, the Latest product of Enterprise Culture,', ¡nFree Cooperation' a newspaper publìshed in conjunction with the 2004 conference with the same title at theDepartment of Media Study, SUNy at Bufialo1 1. Projects and publications such as the following haveyears: lhird Text's "Art and Collaboration" issue from NoWright, and based on a 2OO3 conference, ,,Diffusion: Cotlvlodern, London; "Dispositive Workshop," a series of six2403-2004: Colloquium on collaborative Practices at the Kunstverein N4ùnchen in July 2004, dôcumented ¡nGesammelte Drucksachen (collected newsletters), published by Revolver Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt2005; "Collaborative Practices pârt 2,,' at Shedhaile in Zùrich

'n Aprit 2OOS: and ,,Col¡ective Creativity,,, at the

Kunsthaile Fridericianum in Kasser, in N,'ray 2005. The symposium "Taking the rvratter into common Hands,,,which is the starting point for th¡s publication, took place at laspis in Stockhotm ¡n September and october2005. The swedish curturar journar Gränta has made a speciaf issue on "coilective Art," 2006. Among new-media events dealing with this issue, the conference "Free Cooperation" at the Department of Med¡a Study,STJNY at Buffalo' in 2004 should be ment¡oned. Recent publications include circles: lndividuelle Sozialisationund Netzwerkarbeit in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, ed christoph Keller (FranKurt: Revolver Archiv für aktueileKunst,2002) "Circles"wasaseriesofexhibitionsinfìveparts,withlecturesheldatZKMinKarlsruhein2000and2001 Eachpartfocusedonacircleoranetwork,withmostassociatedwithaparticulartownduringtheprevious decade. "Get Together- Kunst als Team'rork" was an exhibition at the Kunsthalle wien in 1 ggg. Acatalogue with the same ti|e was published dur¡ng the exhibition

184 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING

lf group work in art may be said to be booming at present, it isimpoftant to analyze how these heterogeneous collaborations arestructured and motivated. lt is also necessary to pay attention tocollaborative work and collective actions in society in general, and tocurrent theories of collaboration within philosophy and social theory.As there are already a number of formulations around practices since1990 that could be described loosely as "collaborative practices,"they should be taken into consideration as well. Ambiguities appearfrom the outset. Concepts such as collaboration, cooperation,collective action, relationality, interaction, and participation are usedand often confused, although each has its own specific connotations.According to the collaboratively compiled Wikipedia, however,collaboration may be described as follows:

Collaboration refers abstractly to all processeswherein people work together-applying both to thework of individuals as well as larger collectives andsocieties. As an intrinsic aspect of human society,the term is used in many varying contexts such asscience, ad, education, and business.l2

"Collaboration" is, as the above definition suggests, an open-ended concept, which, in principle, encompasses all the others.Collaboration becomes an umbrella term for the diverse workingmethods that require more than one participant. "Cooperation," onthe other hand, emphasizes the notion of working together towardsmutual benefit. Through its stress on solidarity, the word "collective"offers an echo of working forms within a socialist system. "Collectiveaction" refers precisely to acting collectively, while "interaction" canmean that several people interact with each othe¡ just as a singleindividual might interact with an apparatus by pressing a button, forexample. "Padicipation" is more associated with the creation of acontext in which padicipants can take pad in something that someoneelse has created, but where there are neveftheless opportunities tohave an impact.

COME TOGETHER, BE TOGETHER, WORK TOGETHERCurrent ideas about collaboration in art are interlwined with othercontemporary notions of what it means to "come togethe¡" "betogether," and "work together." Contrary to a general sense of

12 See en wikiped¡a orglwiki/Collaboration

185 THE COLLABORATIVETUFN

^

change in the notion of community-that it has become lesssocially responsible, caring, bonding, and dissolved to a certaindegree-Jean-Luc Nancy claims in The lnoperative Community thatthe community is extremely vital, but in ways other than might beexpected.l3 For instance, community is not the basis for the formationof society or the origin of nations; rathe¡ it is what we find ,,in thewake of society." Community cannot be created: it is not a product ofreligious harmony or utilitarian trumpeting, but should be understoodas a resistance to immanent power. ln addition, according to Nancy,community should, like existence itself, be defined as a non_absolute-that is, relational. He also points out that community canbe reduced neither to "society," nor to diverse mystical associations,which can, for example, lead to fascism. Nationalism is one suchreduction, and, as such, it may also be seen as an expression of"imagined communities," to borrow Benedict Anderson,s term. lncontrast to Nancy's philosophical and somewhat idealistic theory,Anderson's book lmagined communities takes an empirical approach,tracing the processes leading up to American and Europeanimperialisms, as well as the form they have taken in anti-imperialistmovements throughout Asia and Africa, with feelings of belonging oraffiliation and methods of repression having been orchestrated in locallanguages through the daily press.la

Since the advent of modernism, dreams of collectivism haveundoubtedly been a driving force, but according to Gregory Sholetteand aft historian Blake Stimson, two major new forms of collectivismare at play in the world today: one based on an lslamist yearningfor an anti-capitalist, absolute, idealized form of collectivity, and theother struggling to substitute the programmer for the ideologue, whodisappeared with the communitarian ideals of Christianity, lslam,nationalism, and communism. The latter takes the form of a sort ofminimally regulated DIY form of e-collectivism, attracting ,,techno_anarchist hacktivism to hippie-capitalist, pseudo-counterculturalimperialism."ls This particular approach argues for the need tohistoricize collectivism-and includes the autonomous zones formedin Seattle and Genoa, as well as the provisional community work ofaftist groups like wochenklausur or Temporary services-in order to

'13 Jean-Luc Nancy' The lnoperative Community, (London and [.4inneapolis: UniversÌty of Minnesota press,1991)14 Benedict Anderson' lmagined Commun¡ties: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Natjonal¡sm (Londonand New York: Verso, 1 983 and I 991)

lia_11!"4,'."r""ndcregoryShotette,,,periodisingCoilectivism,"¡nThirdText.no 18(november2oo4):

186 SELECTED MARIA LIND WFITING

re-imagine and reshape collective action and take charge of socialbeing in the present. ln this, their roots in radical political thought andits reverence for solidarity come to the fore.

Hardt and Negri's concept of the "multitude" has been perhaps thebest formulation of how group dynamics have emerged on a macrolevel. For Hardt and Negri, the "multitude" replaces concepts suchas "the people" and the less ethnic "population." ln contrast to"the people," a multitude remains plural and multiple. lt is a set ofsingularities in which each social subject maintains its difference. ltis compared with the individual as a pad of "the people," when theindlvidual must deny his or her difference in order to form "a people."Unlike the masses or the mob, a multitude is not fragmented anddisconnected, but consists of active social subjects who can acttogether. lndeed, the multitude is a concept that can encompassall important group parameters-class, gende¡ ethnicity, andsexual preference-but Hardt and Negri choose to underline class.This elaboration of the enlightenment ideal of emancipation hasa curious vitalist touch to it, but it is nevertheless there to, in theirunderstanding, counteract the forces of "empire," the networkpower that forms a new sovereignty based on the interactionsbetween dominant nation-states, supranational institutions, andmajor corporations. lnterestingly enough, they distinguish between"common" on the one hand, and "community" and "public" onthe other. Like the multitude, "common" can include singularities;the "common" is based on communication between singularities:it comes from the collaborative social processes that underlie allproduction. ln this context, it is worth elevating their observation that,together with communication, collaboration has become a centralmethod in the new paradigm of immaterial production over thelast decades.l6

Perhaps the problem is, rather, that there is too much forcedcommonality and prescribed collaboration today in the sense ofsocial unanimity and political consensus-at least in North-WestEurope. The political philosopher Chantal Mouffe suggests that, ratherthan consensus, it is the intrinsic conflict in liberal democracy thatshould be cultivated instead.lT More difference and disagreement, inother words, can avoid the risk of "consensus of the centre," which

16 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: ThePenguin Press,2004)17 Chanlal Ì!4ouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London and New York: Verso. 2000)

gives scope to, for instance, right-wing extremists as the only realalternative in the political arena. Mouffe's "agonistic pluralism,,can beof use here for not being based on final resolutions, but on an ongoingexchange marked by conflict. "Agonistic" relationships, similar toantagonistic relationships, involve struggles with an adversary ratherthan with an enemy. An adversary is someone with whom you sharecommon ground while disagreeing on meanings and implementationsof basic principles-disagreements that simply cannot be resolvedthrough the deliberation and rational discussion celebrated by',third-way" politicians and defenders of the "post-political,, alike.

Although post-political approaches and some attitudes of the so-called "new media critique" community might look similar at firstglance, with both underlining collaboration, their approaches arein fact very different. The longing for a different society based onsharing and cooperation, which has been forcefully expressed bythe new media critique community since the mid-19g0s, carrieson some of the pathos of the post-1968 "new social movements,,'when new means of communication began to be available, and eveninexpensive. lt has been said that movements around open sourceand open content have thereby created new production paradigmsthat counteract the type of mandatory collaboration and imposedself-organization that, for example, post-Fordist working conditionsoften entail.18 These movements have produced a lively discourseon, and concrete practice of, various collaborative methods such as"open space technology," which allows for a mild protocol forself-organization.

It may also be claimed that another contemporary way of ,,comingtogether" and "working together," both in the academic and theaftistic sphere, can be found in interdisciplinarity. As old bordersare transgressed and different disciplines meet in the hopes offeftilizing each other, the ivory tower appears to become somewhatless remote, even disappearing altogether when cultural studiesenable popular culture to gnaw at literature, and when contemporaryvisual art is subjected to the same close scrutiny as theoreticalstudies of historical paintings. However, as soon as this cross-disciplinary development began to be described as ,,post-disciplinaryevil," traditionalists, but also those who took on the challenges ofpostmodernism, began to have grave doubts, perhaps for fear of

1 I See Free Cooperation, op cit

i88 SELECTED ¡.4AR¡A LIND WRITING

being deemed shallow outside of their own field.le All this follows fromthe logic that very few people, if any, can fully cover several fields atonce, and that the results of mixing disciplines therefore become fartoo thin. With the exception of the bureaucratic and economicallymotivated Wagnerian experiment, the "coming together" of differentsubject and genre areas-as subjects and genres-is unusual today.It is as unusual as arranged marriages, in which two people are forcedto marry and as rare as successful blind dates.2o We do, however,often find temporary collaborations within self-determined activities,but these do not entail the literal merging of categories.

Strategies for collaboration in contemporary art seem to havea particular relationship to the last decade's political and socialactivities. You can even identify a desire for activism within the fieldof aft today. Ever since Reclaim the Streets cropped up in London atthe beginning of the 1990s, claiming common ownership of publicspace, blocking traffic with festival-like happenings, both individualand collective actions in urban space have increased. Actions aga¡nstcorporate ownership and various political questions concerningjustice are now a part of larger meetings of the lMF, World EconomicForum, and G8. The "anti-globalization movement," "movement ofmovements," or "global justice movement," as it is also called, and itscriticism of the global political impact of international corporations onboth the environment and employment rights, has given large-scalecooperative activism a new public visage, mainly through the use ofthe media. Who can forget the pictures from Seattle in 1999? Or theones from the many cities in the world where mass demonstrationstook place against an impending US invasion of lraq in February2OO3? With the help of new technology, thousands of people can nowquickly gather together to express their viewpoints. And one cannotunderestimate the extent to which digital technology has contributedto the boom in cooperation, where "tactical media" blends of newtechnology, aft, and activism have given political protest a new face.

Another cardinal point to consider in relation to questions aroundcollaboration concerns the organization of work in present-day society. lmmaterial labo¡ such as various kinds of services,

19 See Games Fights Collaborations; Das Spiel von Grenze und Überschreitung, eds Beatrice von BÌsmarck.Diethelm Stoller, and Ulf Wuggenig (Lüneburg and Stuttgart: Kunstraum der Universitä't Lüneburg and CantzVelag, 1996); and The Anxiety of lnterdìsciplinarity, eds Alex Coles and Alexia Defert (London: BACKlessBooks in association with Black Dog Publishing. 1 997)20 The Wagner experìment refers to the en'thusiasm that civil seryants and politicians often have forinterdisciplinary projects planned top down so that they Ìmpose themselves on art and the o'ther disciplines

information, and care, as well as other activities that create relationsand social situations, are crucial to the paradigm of post-Fordistwork. lt may even be claimed that the production of communication,social relations, and cooperation are constitutive of immaterial labor.Furthermore, creativity and flexibility are essential for maximizingprofit under these conditions, so the worker/producer must beprepared to work on shor.t-term contracts. Those who work shouldalso be innovative and think in unconventional ways, and sobohemians in general, and artists in particula¡ become importantrole models. Howeve¡ in contrast to the ideal of the romantic artist,you must be able to alternate between being self-motivated andworking independently, and being part of a group and working in ateam. This requires even greater flexibility-and lack of security-than is typically associated with working a steady job.21 Here, theidealistic aspect of collaboration, represented by activism, clasheswith the crass demands to raise profitability and efficiency voicedby private businesses and the state. While the former stands forself-organization and self-empowerment, the latter is more direcilyinstrumental. Many of these aspects may indeed be recognized insome of the leading examples and understandings of collaborative aftpractices over the last fifteen years.22

RELATIONAL AESTHETICS, NEW GENRE PUBLIC ART,CONNECTIVE AESTHETICS. KONTEXTKUNST. ANDDIALOGICAL ARTArt and its working methods are certainly not necessarily the directresult of these social, political, economic, and philosophicalphenomena. Anthropologically speaking, they are pad of the culturein which these processes operate. Art participates in both theproduction and reproduction of these phenomena; art performs,depicts, and checks these processes. The same thing can be saidto apply with regard to one of the recent decade's most influential-and disputed, not least by the quoted aftists-constructions incontemporary art: the so-called "relational aesthetics." Althoughnot discussing collaboration per se, the curator and critic Nicolas

21 See Luc Bo tanski and Eve Chiape lo, The New Spirit of Capitalism, trans Gregory Elliott (London and NewYork: Verso, 2005)22 Such topics were brought up in a seminar entitled "New Relation-alilies," curated in collaboratjon with criticNinalvlöntnann,whichtookplaceatlaspisinStockholmonFebruary25 2006.Theseminardealtwithartfocusing on social relations and employed a critical and theoretical approach to decoding and understandingihe types of relations wÌth viewers produced by works of art What are the relations created between art,.stitutjons, and the public? What linguistic means of expression are obtainable when trying to fÌnd adequate

terms for all of these forms of relations?

-90 SELECTED À,4ARIA LIND WRITING

Bourriaud's 1998 book, Esthétique Relationnelle, defines certaincontemporary adworks as "an attempt to create relationshipsbetween people over and above institutionalized relational forms,"almost as a foundation for collaboration. Relational aesthetics waswidely debated in the mid-1990s in Scandinavia, France, and Holland,and more recently during a delayed, yet significant reception inGreat Britain and the United States. A journey into recent Westernart history would take us immediately to the work of artists such asDominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jorge Pardo, Carsten Hölle¡ PhilippeParreno, Liam Gillick, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Angela Bulloch, and MaurizioCattelan-the core group of artists whose work Bourriaud refers to. lnhis view, this heterogeneous group of artists proposes social methodsof exchange and alternate communication processes in order togather individuals and groups together in ways other than thoseoffered by the ideology of mass communication. They seek to enticethe observer or viewer into the aesthetic experience offered by theartwork. Bourriaud claims that these artists do not wish to reproduceor depict the world as we know it, but instead create new situations-micro utopias-using human relations as their raw material.23

Referring to Duchamp's 1954 lecture "The Creative Process,"Bourriaud acknowledges that interactivity is scarcely a novel idea, butnevedheless underlines the importance of these ar.tists' productionof inter-personal experiences aimed against the ideology of masscommunication. lt is an art that "is not trying to represent utopias, butbuild concrete spaces," and he continues by stating that present-dayart strives to produce situations of exchange, of relational space-time. lt is the counter-merchandise. Unlike merchandise, it does notconceal the work process, the use value, or the social relations thatenable its production. Yet it does not reproduce the world that it hasbeen taught to expect-it tries to invent new worlds, taking humanrelations as its material.2a

23 Nlcolas Bourriaud's essayistìc and yet relevant discussion on relationa aes'thetics has been widelydisputed, even aggressively so The Los Angeles-based art historian and writer George Baker's "open letter"to Nicolas BourrÌaud sounds like a vendetta: "Despite its myopia in the face of the full range of contemporaryart practices oulside of France, despite its inabillty to develop and carry a theoreiical argument or model,the misconceptions and ignorance displayed ìn thÌs text have only been matched by its popu ar¡iy withincontemporary curatorial circles A full critique of its terms however will have to await another moment, anolhermore specific 'open letter"' Quoted from "Relations and Counter-Relations; An Open Letter to NicolasBourrÌaud," in Contextualize, exh cat (Kunstverein Hamburg,2002)24 NÌcolas Bourriaud "An lnÌroduction to Relational Aesthetics." in Traffic, exh cal (Bordeaux: CAPC N,4usée

d'añ contemporain, 1 996), no pagination

191 THECOLLABORATIVETURN

Despite the fact that the notion of relational aesthetics wasoriginally coined to discuss works by specific artists, it has becomea catchphrase used carelessly to describe any artwork with aninteractive and/or socially related dimension. ln recent years, relationaltendencies, which often depart from the model Bourriaud formulated,have included interventionist and offsite projects, discursive andpedagogical models, neo-activist strategies, and increasinglyfunctionalist approaches (such as arVarchitecture collaborativegroups). Many of these are on the margins outside of the mainstreamart world, as were their predecessors from the 1g80s and 90s.

Undoubtedly, much of the radically heterogeneous art that Bourriaudrefers to involves interaction and participation, sometimes evendirect collaboration between the artist and individuals or groups.Many of the artists whose work he deals with have also workedwith each other, but collaboration remains one facet among many.However, closer examination reveals that the aftists to whomBourriaud refers have engaged in more or less every type ofinteraction and exchange imaginable, making the concept ofrelational aesthetics even more open-ended than ,'collaboration',alone. A significant amount of the criticism that has been leveledagainst Bourriaud concerns to what degree the concept of relationalaesthetics implies "good" collaboration, "positive,, interaction, andparticipation -what is the quality of the exchange being stimulated?For the Canadian art historian Stephen Wright, the art associatedwith relational aesthetics is intellectually and aesthetically meager,foisting services on people who never asked for them and drawingthem into "frivolous interaction." The participants' efforts, howeversmall, are not reimbursed, and society's class-based power relationsare reproduced.2s Everything connected to relational aesthetics istherefore dismissed as capricious and exploitative. London-basedcritic Claire Bishop's criticism of relational aesthetics in Octobermagazine stemmed from a more formalist art historical position.She focused on a few works by Gillick and Tiravanija, contendingthat they glossed over the tensions and conflicts that exist in allrelations between people by orchestrating a kind of conviviality. ln herunderstanding, they subscribe to what is basically a quasi-democracyand buy into compromise and consensus.26

::aïi- Wright, "The Delìcale Essence of Artistic Coilaborarion,', ¡n Third Text, no 1g (November 2004):

26 Claire Bishop, "Antagonism and Retational Aesthetics,,,Octobec no 110 (fall 2OO4):51_79

192 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING

ln contrast, Bishop cites Santiago Sierra and Thomas Hirschhorn,claiming that when they collaborate with people from differenteconomic backgrounds, they retain the inherent tensions and conflictsbetween observer, padicipant, and context-challenging the putativeimage of the art world as a self-righteous place where social andpolitical issues from other segments of society are embraced. Hergreatest stumbling block, howeve[ comes in considering how thisart should be judged; for her, it must not on any condition be judgedif the relations produced by the work can be considered exploitativeor disrespectful. And actually, this position is an inversion of Wright'scriticism. Whereas he believes that the works in question areproblematic, even bad, for being exploitative, the problem for Bishoplies in their containing too little conflict. The aft based on relationsthat retain their tensions and difficulties is better than the art that isassumed to seek agreement and harmony, which she ascribes to thework of Tiravanija and Gillick. Although their art has rarely, if ever,referred to these third-way abstractions.

Here, the commonality between Bourriaud, Wright, and Bishop isstriking: they are all equally-perilously-impressionistic in theirdescriptions of aftwork and equally sweeping in how they mingletheir understanding of aftworks and artists' practices as a whole. lnthis context, it is also crucial to distinguish between an interpretationof a work of art and the work itself, a matter often overlooked by allthree. This also reminds one of the importance of experiencing theproject one discusses, or of at least being able to rely on detailedand trustworthy eyewitness accounts. This sort of interventionist,cooperative work has proven to be even more difficult to describe-letalone analyze-than other types of art.

ln this context, the art historian and critic Christian Kravagna'sdistinction-with an interest in human interaction-betweenfour different methods seen in contemporary ad may be useful:"working with others," interactive activities, collective action, andparlicipatory practice. According to Kravagna, "working with others"is favored by "sozio-chics," like Christine and lrene Hohenbüchler,Jens Haaning, and Tiravanija, who devote themselves to buildingsocial and communicative relations t¡¡ith the public. Here the artistscynically instrumentalize the public. However, for those with a deeperknowledge of these bodies of work, it is clear that potentially politicalcontent is often present, but in ambiguous and opaque, albeit precise,

193 THE COLLABORATIVETUFN

ways.27 The interactivity of the work permits one or more reactionsthat can influence its appearance without deeply affecting itsstructure. The idea behind collective action is, rather, that a group ofpeople formulate an idea that they can then carry out together. whileKravagna does not present concrete examples, one can imagine"push-button art" to be included in interactive aft and that GuerillaGirls' actions could exemplify "collective action." ,,parlicipatorypractice" presumes a distinction between producer and receive¡ butthe focus is placed on the latte¡ on whom a significant part of thework's development relies. Adrian piper,s Funk Lessons, in which theartist arranged and made videos of putatively ethnic dance lessons,and Clegg & Guttmann's Open Library in Graz and Hamburg, wherea common public library was created in a residential neighborhood,are described in detail and cited as two examples of participatorypractice.2E Funk Lessons was not the point of departure for an alreadyexisting community; rathe¡ the work itself produced a community thathad not previously existed.

Among the more overlooked conceptualizations of collaborativepractices from recent decades are Suzy Gablik,s ,,connectiveaesthetics," Suzanne Lacy's *new genre public art,,, and GrantKester's "dialogical art." Outside the German-speaking context, peterWeibel's so-called "Kontextkunst" has remained unexplored. Lacy,a founding member of the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW) at theWoman's Building in Los Angeles, coined the term ,,new genre publicart" to discuss ar1 that seeks to engage more directly with audiences.ln a 1995 anthology entifled Mapping the Terrain, Lacy defines itin this way: "New genre public ar1 calls for an integrative criticallanguage through which values, ethics, and social responsibilitycan be discussed in terms of arI."2e lt is a working model based onrelations between people and on social creativity rather than self-expression, and it is characlerized by cooperation. lt is community_based, often relating to marginalized groups; it is socially engaged,interactive, and aimed at anothe¡ less anonymous public than that ofart institutions. lt is about creative participation in a process. Activitiesare primarily pursued far from the established art institutions, in other27 See Maria LÌnd, "The Process of Living in the World of Objects: Notes on the Work of Rirkrit Tiravanija,,, inRlrkritTiravanijâ:ARetrospectiveflomorrowisAnotherFineDay),ecj FrancescaGrassiandFirkritT¡ravanija(Zürich: JRP Ringier, 2007), 1 19-12828 See Chrrstian Kravagna, ¡,4ooelle partizipatorischer Prais I Die Kunst des öffenilichen, eds [,4ar¡us Babrasand Achim Könneke (Amsterdam and Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, j 999)29 suzanne Lacy, Ny'apping rhe Terrain: New Genre pubric Art (seatfle: Bay press, f ggs), 43 Lacy uses theterm to d¡scuss a number of very different projects ¡n the US from the 1 97Os to the 1 990s, rang¡ng from AdrianPÌper to Las ¡,4ujeres Muraljstas

194 SELECTED ¡,4ARIA LIND WRITING

social contexts such as residential neighborhoods or schools. ln thisway, a kind of reverse exclusivity emerges: those who are attracted tothe project have more access to this art than the usual aft public. Theexamples in her book function as case studies, and the artists includeVito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Judy Chicago, Group Material, MierleLaderman Ukeles, and Fred Wilson.

New genre public art emerged at the same time as relationalaesthetics, as did the kindred connective aesthetics developed byGablik. Formerly an artist, Gablik is an active critic, theorist, andteacher. According to her, connective aesthetics locates creativity in akind of dialogical structure that is frequently the result of collaborationbetween a number of individuals rather than an autonomousauthor. Connective aesthetics is the antithesis of modernism andits "nonrelational, noninteractive, and nonpadicipatory orientation, "also in its embrace of traditional values such as compassion andcare, seeing and responding to needs.3o Connective aesthetics isfudhermore listener-centered rather than vision-oriented, and istherefore claimed to be pad of "a new consciousness of how the selfis being defined and experienced." Psychotherapy and ecologicaldiscussions are sources of inspiration, and notions such as "healing"crop up often in her writing. Gablik states that connective aesthetics"makes art into a model for connectedness and healing by openingup being to its full dimensionality-not just the disembodied eye."Her examples include Jonathan Borofsky and Gary Glassman's 1986video documentary, Prisoners; Suzanne Lacy's The Crystal Quilt, from1987; Mother's Day in Minneapolis, which features 430 older womendiscussing their hopes and fears of aging, their accomplishmentsand disappointments; and Mierle Laderman Ukele's 1978 TouchSanitation, in which the artist shook hands with 8,500 sanitationworkers over a period of eleven months, saying "thank you forkeeping NYC alive" to each and every one of them.

Connective aesthetics and new genre public art have been largelydisregarded, and many feel somewhat suspicious of the didactic,salutary intentions, not to mention the slightly "new agey" characterclaimed by the authors. Yet, they have surely opened up new ways ofthinking about the role and nature of ad with regard to its audiences,with collaboration at the core. Just as ad that seeks to go beyond thecontemplative, intentional image and object-based art-as relationalaesthetics does-must be seen in the light of the spectacularization,

30 Suzi Gablik, "Connective Aesthetics: Art After lndividualism," ibid , 80

195- THE COLLABORATIVETURN

commodification, and sales boom of the 19g0s, so should new genrepublic art and connective aesthetics also be considered as attemptinga similar break. Howeve¡ Kravagna contends that the latter two sufferfrom political deficits, which they then compensate for with pastoralmeans, which is to say that they seek ',the good.,' ln his view, thisgoes hand in hand with political impotence and the general sense ofbeing unable to really affect political processes, with voluntary workand other social interests replacing political influence. But beyondthis, some of Bourriaud's descriptions of relational aesthetics arebetter suited to the art that Lacy and Gablik examine than the ar.the himself addresses. And a good amount of Bishop's criticisms ofTiravanija and Gillick can be found in formulations of new genre publicart and connective aesthetics, but in positive terms.

A third concept of relevance here, which came about around the sametime, is that of Kontextkunst (context art). Kontextkunst reached awider public in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name,assembled by the artist and curator peter Weibel as parl of the'1 993 Graz steirischer Herbst.3r The artists involved are thought toinvestigate and question contexts, often through various forms ofcollaboration, and are connected along an axis from New york toCologne, and include Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Clegg & Guttmann,Renée Green, Gen¡vald Rockenschaub, Thomas Locher, and christianPhilipp Müller. Their critical investigations into how culture is actuallyproduced often reminds one of the institutional analytical strategiesof the 1960s, and their art tends to be site-specific. Like the artistsassociated with relational aesthetics, the approaches of contextualartists are interdisciplinary, and include such areas as architecture,music, and mass media. Howeveç in contrast to the former,contextual artists are more historically oriented and their methods aremore academic. Aesthetically, they tend to keep a low profile, withstraightforward delivery of information as a prominent strategy.

Dialogical ad as discussed by art historian Grant Kester in the 2004book Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication inModern Art is a more recent treatment of work mainly from the i g90s,focusing again on the intersection of art and cultural activism, basedon collaborating with diverse audiences and communities. creative

31 seePeterweibel,Kontextkunst-KunstdergoerJahre(corogne:DuMontverrag,1994) r\4anyoftherelevant discussions about the work of these artists had, previous to the exhibition and the cata¡ogue, beenpublÌshed in the journal Texte zur Kunst, and a number of those ìnvolved felt that we¡bel and some of the othercurators had hijacked their project See Stefan Germer "Unter Geiern- Kontext-Kunst im Kontext,,, in Texte zurKunst. no 1 I (November 1 995): 83-95

196 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING

dialogue and empathetic insight are at the core of the works he refersto, as are models for successful communication. This art primarilyexists outside the international network of galleries and museums,curators and collectors. Among his examples are Wochenklausur's1994 project in Zürich, Shelter for Aid Drug-Addicted Women,which involved floating dialogues with various women, resulting in aboarding house, and Suzanne Lacy's 1994 The Roof is On Fire, wherethe artist worked with 22O teenagers in Oakland to question racialstereotypes in a media event to which more than 1,000 local residentswere invited. Like Kravagna and Lacy, Kester also discusses thework of Stephen Willats and Adrian Piper. This thorough study tracesart's function as communication, from Clive Bell and Roger Fry toClement Greenberg and Jean-François Lyotard, and makes the crucialpoint that they all associate semantic accessibility-for example, inadvertisi n g - with the destructive eff ects of capital ist commod if icati on.Kester understands dialogical art as an "open space" withincontemporary culture, where certain questions can be asked andwhere critical analyses can be articulated. Furthermore, dialogical artis based on a critical sense of time that considers its own cumulativeeffects, acknowledging what happens today as having an effect onthe future.

Most of these interpretations of collaboration-based artistic practiceshave been around for a few years, as have the adworks they refer to.Relational aesthetics, new genre public art, connective aesthetics,and dialogical ar1 focus on the relation between the work and thepublic and on forms of participation. lt seems, however, that "thesocial," or "sociality," remains a tricky issue that all of these conceptsmaneuver around, although they use very different methods to reachtheir public.32 Kontextkunst also takes a view to participation, butrather than using the social as its backbone, it privileges the political.Of course, these methods of working continue to exist, but newly,or somewhat newly developed and updated ways of working undera notion of "collectivity" have appeared, with groups of peoplesharing - as wel I as questioning together- authorship.

RECENT MODELS OF COLLABORATIONWhat do the more recent collaborations look like-those that wereformed or became visible after the mid-1990s? Undoubtedly, there

32 For a discussion on art as socìal space, see Nina l\y'öntmann, Kunst als sozialer Baum (Cologne: Verlag der

Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2002)

197 THE COLLABOFATIVETURN

are many forms of artistic coilaboration: stabre murtipre authorshipduos, such as Bik Van der pol, Marysia Lewandowska and Nellcummings, Ergarand-vargarand lLeit rtggren and carl Michael vonHausswolff), Clegg & Guttmann; anO taig-er groups who have workedtogether for a long time, such as Radekbommun¡ty in Moscow,IRW,N in Ljubrjana, Group Materiar in New york, criticarArt Ensembrein the US, and Women Down the pub in Copenhagen. There aresingle-issue groups such as park Fiction that dissorve after achievinga specific goar, which for park Fiction was to prevent a vacant rotin a deprived area of Hamburg from being developed. OOa eroiesi,consisting of three young female artists and sociologists, *u" oà""0in the rstanbur quarter of Garata for a number of years. They workedtogether there with the rocar inhabitants investigating and redefiningthe use of various types of space. Temporary services is a coilectivebased in Chicago and focuses on temporary and ephemeral projectsin public space. others have chosen to organize themselves aroundthe model of a music group, as Generar rdãa and Freie Krasse do.stilr others, such as Bernadette corporation, atude to the businessworld and branding methods, or to bureaucratic organs, such as GalaCommittee. Schleuser.net takes the form of a lobbying organizationfor business enterprises speciarizing in undocumented cross-borderhuman traffic. some of their activitlãs resembre the art activism ofRaqs Media cotectir,,e and Murtipricity. The ratter two consist ofpeople coming from various professional backgrounds_artists,architects, and sociorogists-who together nourish a desire to changesociety with their work. A backdrop tó most of this is the awarenessthat coilaboration entairs contact, confrontation, deriberation, and

-negotiation to a degree surpassing that of individual work, and thatthis produces subjectivity differenfly.

Since 2000, through UKK (Unge Kunstnere og Kunstformidle fyoungad workersl)33 and rKK (rnstitutet 5r konstnärer och konstförmedrare[lnstitute for a¡lists and art workers]),3a Denmark and Swedenhave seen an increase in poriticized pubric discussions on curturarproduction, and this has created new speciar interest organizationsfor arlists and art mediators. rn this coniext, the currentry inactivesocietät Hirdesheim can seem aroof because of their devotion tointensively fictionalizing themselves as an archaic upper_class club.Fictionarizing is a wet-tested method for questioning authorship, anoone of the more recent additions to the art scene is the curator

33 See www ukk dk34 See www Ìkk nu

198 SELECIED I\IARIA LIND WRITING

Daniela Johnson, whose name stands for a group of curators andartists. Reena Spaulings is both the name of a gallery in New York runby a collective of aftists, and the title of a collectively written novel,whose main character bears the same name. ln many cases, theindividual members of the groupings pursue their own careers, whileothers immerse themselves completely in group work. All, however,are based on collaboration between specific founders. Some havesystematically collaborated with others, a method they share withindividual artists such as Johanna Billing, Annika Eriksson, JeremyDelle¡ Apolonija Suðterðic, Santiago Sierra, and Thomas Hirschhorn,who individually involve groups of people in their projects. However,these artists work with groups in very different ways.

Billing, Eriksson, Deller, and Hirschhorn, for example, haveapproached groups of people who already have something incommon, and the artists then propose a new type of activity, which, toan extent, produces a new identity that does not always go tidily withtheir primary identification. ln their projects, these artists appealtolatent qualities and conflicts, which are tested and then acted out. lnthese cases, it is important to emphasize the differences in the typesof relations established between the artist and those involved: Are thelatter given a role or task by the former or do they develop it together?ls the "commission" carried out with or without remuneration? ls ita win-win situation or can one person be said to exploit another?The question becomes one of whether you even speak at all aboutcollaboration when the responsibility lies very clearly with one pafty,as it does in many projects by Billing, Eriksson, Deller, and Suöterðið.The people involved are not responsible for improving or followingup on the project. They can even leave without a guilty conscience.Neither are they normally credited as collaborators. As collaborations,these projects can perhaps be regarded as "weak," or not "full-fledged," for involving varied groups of people. The projects areparlicipatory, but they generally lack the "healing" impetus of newgenre public art, connective aesthetics, and dialogical art.

While discussing contemporary collaborative practices, one shouldnot overlook loose groups of aftists who, for a time, live and workside by side and share attitudes and approaches. Christine Borland,Douglas Gordon, Nathan Coley, Jacqueline Donachie, Claire Barclay,Simon Starling, and Ross Sinclair had a situation similar to this in

^

Glasgow in the 1990s.35 During the same period GianniMotti, SydneyStucki, Sylvie Fleury John Armleder, and others did the same inGeneva.36 These loose groupings or networks are obviously close tothe classic "circle of friends," but their role as breeding grounds fortemporary collaborations should be acknowledged.

It is warranted here to distinguish between ,'single,, and ,,double,,collaboration. ln the forme¡ the author remains alone and otherscontribute towards realizing an idea that is already more or lessformulated. ln the latter, collaboration takes place both in theformulation of the idea on the parl of the author, but also in therealization of the work. The idea is developed together with others,who are awarded the same status as the author, and who also allparticipate in the execution of the project. ,,Double,, collaboration issynonymous with Kravagna's "collective action.,,,,Triple,' collaborationwould then refer to the cases in which the work takes "collaboration,,as its subject and theme; for instance, in Neil Cummings,s andMarysia Lewandowska's The Enthusiasts, in which they focusedon postwar Polish film clubs organized in factories. The doublecollaborations seem to be the most typical form of present-daycollaboration, emphasizing artists' working conditions.

Another clear division in terms of the varied forms of collaborativework is that which exists between formal and informal groupingsof authors, between those with a fixed number of members anda common name, and those without any general plan who gatherlike a flock of birds, cropping up in different formations for differentoccasions. This is the model used for No Ghost Just a shell. Here liesthe distinction between more improvised and thoroughly structuredwork. The former composes a kind of collective authorship and asearch for even the smallest common denominato¡ whereas the latteris about shared points of departure, shared interests and values,rather than any kind of official joint ownership-a temporary collectiveof originators/creators. The people involved want to stimulate thegreatest possible distinctiveness, but out of something shared, suchas their collective sensibilities and attitudes. Historical forerunnersof this include the artists associated with Fluxus and their many andvaried collaborations, as well as with conceptual art.

35 See Katrrna Brown, "Trust," and Ross Sinclair, "What's in a Decade," in Circles: lndividuelle Sozlalisationund Netzwerkarbeit in der Zeitgenössischen Kunst, op cit36 See Lionel Bovier. "The Circle and Geneva." ibid

2OO SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING

Many of today's collaborations in art contexts operate horizontally andconsist of actors from different fields; very often, these collaborationslie on the border between activist, arlistic, and curatorial activities,and they tend to be self-organized. Ordinarily, the collaboratorshave joined together in order to react to a specific local situation,such as KMKK in Budapest, DAE in San Sebastian, B+B in London,and WHW inZagreb.3T Some groups have become incorporatedwithin institutional contexts-albeit temporarily-as some of thegroups mentioned above have been (in Museum Ludwig, Manifesta5, and lCA, respectively), while others have even taken over entireinstitutions, as was the case with Konst2 (Art2), who took overTensta Konsthall in Stockholm in the spring of 2004.38 The variousconstituent parls of No Ghost Just a Shell have been shown in anumber of different institutional contexts-the project itself couldhardly be considered without institutional interference. As a singlecomplete project, it has been shown at the Van Abbemuseum inEindhoven, the lnstitute of Visual Culture in Cambridge, and at theKunsthalle Zürich.3e According to Hans Ulrich Obrist, it may alsobe claimed that the project has even contributed to changes in theprevailing exhibition paradigm.a0 lt recalls the impodant distinctionbetween one single, solitary, collaborative project and ongoingcol laborations between authors and/ or others.

The basic models of contemporary collaborative forms in ad can beeasily extended, as there are innumerable variations on the theme,but this should suffice to show their prevalence and indicate theirheterogeneity. Historically, the motivation to engage in collaborativepractices cerlainly varies: people have joined together to findnew ways of living closer to nature, as with Monte Verita and inWorpswede during the turn of the last century; or to use various typesof action to wield political influence, like the group Tucuman Ardein Rosario and the Art Workers' Coalition in New York at the end ofthe 1960s. Early on, a crucial difference emerged between wanting

37 lMaria Lind, Katharìna Schlieben, and Judith Schwartzbart, eds , Colloqu¡um on Collaborative Practice:Dispositive Workshop Part 4 (Munich; Kunstverein N,4unich, 2004). Also published in Collected Newsletters(FrankTurt:RevolverArchivefüraktuelleKunst,200S) SeealsotextsbyK¡,4KK,DAE,andB+Bin the same publication38 Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, "Curatorial and lnstitutional Structures," in Colloquium on CollaboratÌve Practice;Dispositive Workshop Part 4, op cit.39 DuringmytimeasDìrectoroftheKunstvereinN,4ünchen,weshowedthef¡rstfourvideosequencesbyPh¡lippe Parreno, Pìerre Huyghe, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and Liam Gillick successively for a month at atìme in the same room, as a part of the exhibitÌon "Exchange & Transform (Arbeitstitel)" in sprìng and summer2002 See page 349 in this book.40 Hans Ulrich Obrist, "How AnnLee Changed lts Spots." in No Ghost Just a Shell, op cit

-.

to live and work together commune_style and wishing only to worktogether. ln contemporary art, beyond aftist_couples, the distinctionbetween living and working together and only working together isclearly exemprified by how the copenhagen-based gioup" N55 andsuperflex have structured their forms of coilaboration, with the formerat one point living and working together and the ratter being contentwith collaborative work.

The motivation behind today's coilaborations varies radicaily, armostin proportion to the number of different modes of working. A commonexplanation for this has been that generosity and sharing provide analternative to contemporary individuarism and the traditiònd roreof the romantic artist as a solitary genius. ln an increasinglyinstrumentalized arl world, both commercially and publicly, self_determination and a desire to be a more powerfur force in-societyhave also been mentioned as important motivations. And there iÁalways the fun of working with others and the practicar advantages ofdividing tasks according to speciarties and preferences.or rn ceñaincases, the need for infrastructure has brought about coilaborationaround technicar equipment and venues. As Beatrice von Bismarckhas pointed out, formarized groups of artists can often be associatedwith self-promotion and a desire to achieve success in the ar.t worrd.similarly, teamwork, with its orientation towards a rational divisionof labor and maximizing profit, is rinked to economic contexts.collective activities, on the other hand, are connected to a desireto withdraw from the exploitation of the art market, to turn awayfrom the production of objects and from marketing. wanting to-bea stronger force in society is a kindred motivation, as is a désire tocreate intellectuaily and emotionaily stimurating working conditions.A proliferation of new social movements seems to suggest thatcollaboration per se is positive, as an intrinsic critique of individuarismand profit seeking. Then there is the prosaic fact that aftists oftenwant to create their own working conditions, and be shaped by themat the same time.a2 And it is important to point out that aftistsand curators today often work under similar economic conditions;both can be classed as ,,precarious workers,', that is, their workiniconditions are unstable and uncertain.a3

41 Judith schwartzbart, "The soc¡ar as a medium, mean¡ng and mot¡vation,, ¡n cor¡oqu¡um on coilaborativePractice: Dispos¡tive Workshop part 4, op. cit.42 Stefan Römer, "Are the vorcanoes st¡il Active? About Art¡st serf-organ¡zat¡on at Art schoors,,, ibid.43- Alex Farquhaßon, ,,Notes on Artist and Curator Groups,,,¡bid.

202 SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING

Collaboration has become a conscious process among artists, aworking method. Since the middle of the 1990s, the field of art hasexpanded and developed affinities with a number of methods inspiredby activism. A kind of "neo-idealism" flourishes in the ads alongsidepolitical "neo-radicalism." This should come as no surprise; whenpolitical principles are completely steered by a capitalist economy,culture necessarily becomes an arena for ideological debate. Culturein general, and aft in particula¡ then function as venues where thepolitical is allowed to be enacted, if sometimes covertly. A situationthen emerges in which the political discussion in the public spaces ofparliamentary democracies turns increasingly to ethics and morality,and art begins to seek out latent forms of political expression-suchas notions of citizenship-that have either been eroded, utterlytransformed, or long taken for granted. Today, we have reached apoint where culture and art are not only used as instruments in thepolitical arena, but also constitute a potent force, discernable in thestrong interest in activism we now find in contemporary art.

It is here that the collaborative turn in contemporary ad becomesmost apparent, as it has increasingly been developed as away of creating room for its practitioners to maneuver aroundinstrumentalizing effects of both the art market and publicly financedart alike. lt is simply easier to develop your own self-determined waysof working when you are self-organized. lf the art of the '1 990s wasmarked by a desire to dissolve borders and mingle previously distinctfields, the new millennium has revealed a form of "neo-separatism."We have seen an increase not only in self-definition and a withdrawalfrom the commercial market, but also in the distinction between largermainstream public institutions and self-organized parallel initiatives'Whereas the larger mainstream institutions strive to be public-friendly,and therefore tend to adhere to the principles of entertainment, self-organized initiatives are more investigative, preferring to questiongiven preconditions. While this division has always existed, in recentyears it has seen more pronounced distinctions. Collaborativepractitioners can indeed be found everywhere within this, as well aswithin public and commercial institutions, but a significant number areclearly more at home as self-organized parallel initiatives. lt is easierto strategically separate oneself as part of a group than on one's own.This urge to create space for maneuver-a "collective autonomy," to

203 THECOLLABOBATIVETURN

borrow a term from Brian Hormes-through strategic separatism, isboth a means of protection and an act of protest.a.

It has been claimed that the anthroporogy of coilaboration mustbe considered together with Marcer Mauss's cail for gift rerations.Something as apparently insignificant as a gift is not just anexpression of unserfish generosity, but arso a way of exercisingpower through the reciprocal logic of the poflatch.as. ls collaborationper se, then, a "good" method? Eve Chiapello claims that the co_option of "aftist critique" by neoliberal neo-management theory whileproving that it has been "successful," has also made it essentiâl[toothless.46 ln a curture of mandatory coffee breaks and consensus,such as in sweden, which outwardry embraces coilaboration as partof its mandate to promote communication and dialogue, rn.ny oithe thoughts mentioned above probabry seem very famiriar. positivevalues such as loyalty, flexibility, altruism, and solidarity are bakedinto the concept of collaboration, but collaboration can also standfor the opposite, for treachery and ethicar instabirity. A coilaboratorcan be a traitor, someone seruing the enemy, a person not to betrusted. The same may be said of cooperative methods. rt is thereforewofth noting that communication and collaboration can be efficientsmokescreens for their abirity to produce generosity and soridarity.The crux of understanding when coilaborations work (and when t-heydon't) thus lies in specificity, ,in the precision of the ,,here and now,,,the consideration of time, context, and other surrounding forces.

But what of the resurts? Does it make any difference whether diverseforms of aftistic collaboration lie behind an artwork or any other kindof cultural production? ls collaboration an inherently ,,better,' method,producing "better" results? The curatorial collective wHW claims thatthe purpose of colraboration ries in producing something that wourdothen¡¡ise not take prace; it has to make possibre that which wourdothenvise be impossible.4T.

44. See Bria Hormes, "Artistic Autonomy and the communicat¡on society," Third rext, no. .1g (November2OO4)

45. See Steven Wright, "The Delicate Esence of Artist¡c Collaborat¡on,,, ibid.46' Eve ch¡apello, "Evorution and co-optat¡on: The 'Artist crit¡que' of i/anagement and cap¡tarism,,' ib¡d47 What, How & for whom, "New oufl¡nes of the po$¡bre," ¡n coilect¡ve cræt¡v¡ty (Kæser: KunsthaileFrideric¡anum, 2OOS).

204. SELECTED MARIA LIND WRITING