One Plus One

About

The wide-ranging possibilities of collaboration belie the simple dictionary definition of the word.  Collaborative art comes in all the varieties and nuances of human relationships, which can be as casual as acquaintanceships, or as full of complications and drama as falling into and out of love; as practical and strong as friendship, or a good marriage; as flighty as flirting; selfless or narcissistic; a coming together of like minds, or a battle of egos. Collaborations can even be solipsistic, or involuntary – like acting out fantasy. One Plus One is a visual essay about collaboration in contemporary art, using a handful of examples to explore the universe of real instances and through its own diversity, adumbrate the wider gamut of what artists are doing.

Artist couple ATOI’s pair of stretchers, Attest, could be the opening sentence of the show - standing together with human proportion, and alluding to themes of support, to a necessity for support, to frailty, to drama.  First-time collaborators Wolfgang Berkowski and Paul Lammertink have been in conversation about their art practice for more than 25 years.  Brazilian artists Alessandra Falbo and Daniel Lie bridge geography and culture in a long-distance online collaboration across continents, to create Bolão – a cake raffle, which also perhaps brings the audience into collaboration, certainly into collusion.  Sasha Bowles, Rosalind Davis, Justin Hibbs, Evy Jokhova, Marion Michell and Annabel Tilley play a parlour game, all the while preserving their autonomy as artists within a collective, through an act of surrender - the repeated demotion of artwork to art material.  it is not clear whether musicians Grumbling Fur are involved in making art, or whether artist Mark Titchner in making music, and whether their collaboration Protogenesis, by playing in a gallery, is to be seen as a music video, or video art.  Victoria Rance pushes the concept of collaboration by working with an alter ego (Humming Bird) through a persona (Grey Heron) to broach serious environmental issues from a historical perspective.  Performance artist Tom Estes reaches into the past to lead the grandfather of post-modernism, Marcel Duchamp, down a whimsical path of serious discourse about art history, time, philosophy, technology, and in the process throwing wide open the very concept which underpins this exhibition.

With works by: Wolfgang Berkowski and Paul Lammertink ~ Tom Estes and Marcel Duchamp ~ Sasha Bowles, Rosalind Davis, Justin Hibbs, Evy Jokhova, Marion Michell, Annabel Tilley ~ Mark Titchner and Grumbling Fur ~ Grey Heron with Hummingbird (Victoria Rance) ~ ATOI ~ Alessandra Falbo and Daniel Lie

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