collaborating couples

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This brochure accompanied the exhibition of the same name, on view at the Georgia Museum of Art June 3-Aug. 6, 2000, and features an essay by Donald Keyes.

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Page 1: Collaborating Couples

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Page 2: Collaborating Couples

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Page 3: Collaborating Couples

Lizzie & oavid zucker saltz

DenwM sirlin a phil auslnnder

susrtilr..oh(rts *. uichnel siwon

LeeAnn uitchell & 1im truonnccorsi

oebornh Mcclnry anunt clwk

Page 4: Collaborating Couples

rtists have always collaborated, since the building of the pyramids to the present; however, the modern museum in the

late eighteenth century and particularly in the twentieth century brought about exaltation of the master artist, who works

in his studio to create unique works of art that miraculously convey insights into eternal truths. Artists' biographies nearly

always stress the creativity of an extraordinary (usually male) individual struggling alone to find artistic self-expression. ln

the 1970s this concept of the lone artist creating unique works of art began to lose its grip as its validity was challenged

and soon debunked. Buffeted by the tenets of Post-modernism, readily available and easily reproducible images, artist-

cooperatives, and feminist ideology, the art world began to (re)connect with the work of art as a collaborative effort.

During the 1950s, Happenings, earth art, installation art, and performance art brought new acceptance and recognition to the importance of many

hands and minds contributing to a work of art. While Andy Warhol's Factory may have given collaboration a bad name, Judy Chicago and Miriam

Shapiro, inthe 197Os, forged new models for collaborative working methods. The monumental achievemenlof Einstein on the Beach (1976) cannot

simply be ascribed to Philip Class's music and words without recognition of the deslgn/direction of Robert Wilson and the choreography of Andrew

de Croat and Lucinda Childs.

In the late nineteenth century it became possible for women to do "serious" work, and consequently, an increasing number of women decided

to become professional artists. Often choosing to use the new medium of photography, they began creating important, innovative, and successful

works of art. The independent woman of the early twentieth century became a growing presence in the rough-and-tumble competition of the art

world; she did not feel forced to work in her studio after the housework was done and the children were cared for. Ceorgia O'Keeffe may be the best

known of these modern women artists, but she is hardly unique.

As more women became professional artists, the previous contributions of women began to emerge as new scholarship revised canonical

art history. As these women achieved recognition for their collaborations with their husbands, a new appreciation for the give-and-take of the cre-

ative process emerged. Many couples only have temporary partnerships, either because the personal relationship is brief or the individuals' collabo-

ration lasts only for one or two projects. Moreover, collaborating couples need not be of the opposite sex and may include less traditional partner-

ships. Although post-war McCarthyism in America made it difficult for American women to get out of the house or out from behind the secretary's

desk, supportive communities coalesced, particularly in San Francisco and New York. ln the late 1950s JasperJohns and Robert Rauschenberg made

significant contributions to each other's art, even though they continued to create their own works. While their relationship was very private, Johns

later acknowledged Rauschenberg's contribution: '. . . we were very dependent on one another. There was that business of triggering energies. Other

people fed into that but it was basically a two-way operation."

Page 5: Collaborating Couples

It seems natural for artists to have close personal relationships, whether in or out of marriage, because they have broad common interests.

This is not to say all are collaborative; indeed, many married couples, including Susan Rothenburg and Bruce Nauman, Leon Colub and Nancy Spero,

and Nancy Rubin and Chris Burden, work independently from each other. For other married couples, including Ceorgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

and Frida Kahlo and Diego Rlvera, the effect each had on the other's work is more subtle and has only recently been acknowledged and investigated. ln

other marriages one contributes to the work of the other-often without acknowledgment-as, for example, Annie and Joseph Albers and David

Smith and Dorothy Dehner. More recently, collaborative work, along with the emergence of non-traditional relationships, has gained acceptance and

even some renown, as for example, the designers Charles and Ray Eames, sculptors Ed and Nancy Redding Keinholz, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the

British installation and performance artists Cilbert and Ceorge, the American photographers Mike and Doug Starn, and the Soviet exiles Komar and

Melamid. These partners nearly always create and are acknowledged as one entity, although the work of the designer Charles Eames and the painter

Ray Kaiser Eames exemplifies the changes that have taken place over the last thirty years. During World War ll their plywood experiments were used

by the military, but after the war, Charles had an exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art. Only in 1960 did their collaborative work

receive recognition in the form of the Kaufmann International Design Award. Another example of this change can be found in the role accorded

Coosje van Bruggen and her work with Claes Oldenburg, recognition that was denied Hannah Wilkie, his earlier collaborator. Computer artists Ed Hill

and Suzanne Bloom have gone so far as to create a new identity/name, Manual, under which they present their work.

The work of the five couples in the present exhibition runs the gamut of collaboration. For Susan Roberts and Michael Simon collaborating

is new. Sculptors LeeAnn Mitchell and Jim Buonaccorsi only occasionally work together. Deanna Sirlin and Phil Auslander seldom work together and

indeed work in what might in other circumstances seem incompatible media-he with words as an art historian and critic and she with paint. Lizzie

and David Zucker Saltz also work in different media, she as sculptor and critic and he as a theater director. Their collaboration results in installation

sculpture. Sculptors Hunt Clark and Deborah McClary have nearly always worked together, although often not on a single work.

lnterviews with each couple reveal another truth about collaborations: the personal relationship is often the most difficult part of working

together. What happens when you reach an irreconcilable point of opposite opinions? How do you keep from letting one person dominate? lf one

person is expert in one medium, can the other become competent enough to make meaningful suggestions for change? None of these questions is

easily answered, but the effort often infuses the art with an energy and creativity that one person working alone may not often achieve.

DowLld.D. Kry$cLLYntoY $ vnintinns

Grcrlin Uuseum olArt

Page 6: Collaborating Couples

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ductions. ln 1984, after graduating from college (Barnard and Yale, respectively), they collaborated

on a video, with Lizzie on camera and David directing. Late[ as David began to utilize his computer

programming skills to create theatrical experiments during his graduate studies at Stan{ord and as

Lizzie integrated perfornance elements and audience interaction into her sculptural installations

during graduate studies at San Jose State, they decided to focus on merging the dramatic potential

of theatrical scenarios with the physical presence and interactive potential of a sculpture setting.

After belng involved with each other's ventures, they decided to collaborate in 1996, this tirne cre-

ating FLEICO: The Fluid ldentity Electronic Companion, a life-scale figure of indeterminate race or

gender, whose reactions varied depending on audience members' physical interactions, and whose

personality changed periodically. While teaching at SUNY-Stony Brook, New York, David created

Beckett Space, an environmental theater experience involving simultaneous short plays that resem-

bled a gallery experience in which the audience could wander in a large space from one play to the

next. Many of the performances used interactive eiectronic devices to actualize Samuel Beckett's

precise, algorithmic scenarios. One of the pieces in the present exhibition is a continuation of that

rhe ureriltring crnb, zoooPVC, aluminum, fabric, LEDs, DC blower, electronics, audiorecording, sensors, Macintosh computer, and audio speaker

30 x 19 x 19 inches

Artisls' statement: An obiedvagtely evocalive of a uab lies

dormant until human participants approach, at whidt time itbegins to breathe audibly. The closer the participants gelto the

crab, the faster and more fully it breathes. As the viewer moves

away from the crab, its breath slows, then becomes painfullyragged, and finally ceases.

Eufrnuces &Elits, z0a0Wood, metal, stepper motors and drivers, electronics, videoprojector, video recording, headphones, and digital prints85 x 33 x 56 inches

Mechanical design consultants: Jason Lake and Richard Cassada

Mechanical implementation assistance: Ollivier Bonamy

Actress: Carolyn BlackintonArtists' statement: This "sculptural animation" performs a

three-minute play based on Samuel Beckett's shofttext "Come

and Co." The play is performed oglically with the characters

trapped in a relentless perpetual motion machine. Within a

puppet theater-like proscenium ctpening, viewers see three

images that move up and down to simulate characters. The

images have bas-reliefs of the three female characters, with a

blank area where the faces are a video image of the acbess,

who performs all three roles. Fixed images of the character's

arm gestures rokte into position for specific lines, as specilied

by the stage directions. The dialogue is heard through threepairs of headphones.

vekt, zoo0 (futnil illustrnted)

Three moclified vintage 1970s ventriloquist's dummiesattached to three wooden children's chairs, with yellow,cloth-covered wires ascending to ceiling rafters; woodplatfornn, mic stand with vintage Astatic D-'!04 radiornicrophone casing, computer m!crophone, "1960s Cenerai

Electric television, two speakets, Macintosh computer,

fabric, servo motors, and interactive electronics56 x 80 x'160 inches

Atilsts' statement: Three ventriloquist's dummies - a whitemale, a white female, and an African-American male - sit in a

semicirde. Their heads are extended above their bodies by long

red velvet necks. The piece is mute until aviewer speaks intothe microphone, which activabs the mount of a randomly cho-

sen dummy, whose mouth will move in sync to the viewer's

speech. As soon N the gallery participant has finished, the lwoother dummies will attack the first, using hate speeches alledfrom numerous web sites. A television displays the author ofthe quote and the web address where itwas found. Two partici-pants may then continue the dialogue with the dummies,

defendingtheir dummy as they wish. After an interval a differ-

ent dummy will be activated by miaophone input, with the

two other dummies attackingthat character.

experiment. At the same tirne, Lizzie has continued to incor-

porate audience participation in her work as well xplace small electronic devices into body-oriented

forms. The new work they have developed

specifically for this exhibition represents an

extension of their joint interest in merging the

traditional worlds of theater and sculpture with

the nascent field of computer-driven, interactive,

and mechanized art events.

Page 7: Collaborating Couples

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married. Deanna is a painter; Phil is a cultural critic. They began by talking about art, includ-

ing Deanna's paintings. For the work in the exhibition Phil used a brush for the first time on

one of Deanna's paintings. Their first collaboration was a book, Disappearance, about the

past, present, and future of Piedmont Park, in Atlanta. This thoughtful work demanrJed a lot

of research for the visual and written components. They collaborated fr:r the second time in

1998, on Looking Forward, Looking Back,lor the Northeast Spruill Oaks Regional Library, in

Alpharetta. They wanted to make a work that reflected the changes that were taking place

in Fulton County and the area. They maintained a division of labor, with Deanna conceptu-

alizing the visual aspect of the piece and Phil writing the poem l-hat was etched onto the

visual work. lfi the present works, the small paintings were scanned so that they became

sections of larger concepts, a microcosm of fragments. ln the paintings the grid (of the win-

dows, for example) provides a structure for the swirling paint. The words are similar frag-

ments, pieces that have been woven together. The first idea for each work is the visual; then

they progress, with the finai form determined by the way the text works with the painting.

Elut \ zaoa (detntl illusLrnted)

Digital transparent prints

One large piece, 257 x J05 inches, and 18 small pieces,

14 x 14 inches each, set in windowsFabricated by Colorchrome Atlanta

Flul. 11, 2rJO0

Digital print95 x 398 inches

Artists' statentent: tloth artists made paintings that were

scanned, digitized, and printed. Phil, in consultation withDeanna, juxtaposed warCs and phrases derived from his

work as an art critic. By transforming the non-obiectivepaintings into large-scale transparencies and then placingwords next to the images, the artists address issues of scale,

rnedium, and function as the paintings take on the charac-

teristics of stained glass, which traditianally contairts narra-

tives, that Deanna and Phil have chosen to create thrctugh

images and words.

Page 8: Collaborating Couples

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Their collaborative work germinated from conversations as they made suggestions about

each other's art. They found that this give-and-take was and had always been crucial for their

personal relationship. They have discovered an honesty in their conversations because they

have no reason to lie to each other. Their art appears throughout their home, and they feel

each needs to have faith in and respect what the other mal<es in order to live with it. They

do not work together on one piece, but rather they contribute to an unseen, inherent struc-

ture of the work. They have found, however, that each needs to maintain autonomy and

freedom. While they share responsibility, ihe final work results from one person making the

object. The collaboration also means that they have to trust each other to make it work. Their

collaboration started almost accidentally. First, Susan included images of Michael's pots in hert'_ _ " -'

paintings, but then she began to request jars that she saw in her mind, so he began making

pots that she requested. She kept them after incorporating them into her worl<, and then he

began to develop them further. Now Michael includes imagery derived from Susan's paint-

ings in his pots.

Susrtn Roherts

Photography, printmaking, and painting, 1997 -2OOO

Oil and acrylic on canvas and oil on silver gelatin fiber prints

uichntl simon

Jars, bowls, beakers, pitchers, vase, and platter, i987-2000Salt-glazed stoneware

Page 9: Collaborating Couples

L e e Aw Mit cheW lmBuou nc c or si

oped a relationship shortly thereafter. The nature of their work made collaboration easy

because sculptors working on a large scale often collaborate, especially if they work in steel.

Even though they had worked together for nearly nine years, the Pig lron: Art Cookers exhi-

bition was the first time they worl<ed as one. Their collaboration is one in which they both do

all the 1obs, from start to finish: welding, conceiving, polishing, and moving, Both have the

same skill level in many areas. Even when collaborating, they retain their individual, and quite

different, styles..lim's work is very geometric; LeeAnn's is more chaotic and messy, what she

calls "country aesthetic funk." Since they work on a large scale, they need others to help

them; thus, their collaboration extends beyond themselves, which makes it more expansive

than the collaboration of the other artists in the exhibition, Nevertheless, they maintain an

active exchange of ideas and work tirelessly on the conceptual basis of each work. First, they

develop a concept, for example, the decline of American farming from the domination of

mechanized farming and the corruption of foods that have been engineered, genetically or

otherwise, issues about which each expresses passionate opinions. From there, they begin to

fabricate the piece.

LeeAnn and Jim met in 1987; they

worl<ed together briefly and devel-

rhu sr criled. rquiS, nu atfutctiv e Nusrmce, 799 9

@tnilihtstnted)

Steel and mixed media25 x 25 x 14 teelArtists' statement: This piece examlnes the fallacy of certain

politically correct attitudes in professional and personal sit-uations. The chain link and barbed wire fences with no

entance restrict the viewer from attempting to ascend theAmerican ladder.

peucil to the enyer, zoooSteel, sheet metal, wheat, barn wood9x9x14feetArtists' statement: This piece consists of a barn structurewith a suspended King disk plow unit within. Bags of wheatare underneath with comparative data reflecting production

costs versus commodity prices over the past thirty years.

With agricultural prices at athirty-year low and personalwealth of Americans at an all-time high, this work investi-gates the current plight of the independent farmer and thedisappearance of that way of life.

Page 10: Collaborating Couples

OdrOfAh UCekfV$ Their relationship began on a personal level inL)LL'utntt tYLLo.u4't )fifuwtclnrk

1992. Thereatter, they assisted each other

emotionally and physically with their individual works of art. Not until recently did they start

truly coilaborating" Now they ofien work collaboratively, even though their individual styles

have evolved in distinct directions as each experiments with new media. The true collabora-

tinn comes in the conceptual phase, made easier because they share studio space, which is,

in practice, their living space. They live in an isolated, area without a telephone or many of the

trappings of Post-moderrr/industrial society. As a resr-rlt, their art constitutes a great part of

their life.

wwillutg ruerulils $uytry( flryjests flyudcmltililnl dts cr1,line, zoo o (d,etrfil illustr nte d)

Wood, slidE and video proiection, Polaroid lift transferlnstallation with three sculptures: 7 0 x 1 4 x 13; 29 x 18 x B;

and 58 x 15 x 24 inches

Attlsts' statement This installation comments on a multifude ofexperiences and obser.tations of social behaviors. lt is an explo-

ration of the metaphysical world and science. lt makes visible

what exists in reality u well as in our subconscious.

Page 11: Collaborating Couples
Page 12: Collaborating Couples

Georlifi, Museum of Art

verformtug nndvnnl xrts comylel

706.5+2.GMOA

Partial support for the exhibitions and programs

for the Ceorgia Museum of Art is provided by the

Ceorgia Council for the Arts through appropria-

tions of the Ceorgia Ceneral Assembly. lndividuals,

foundations, and corporations provide additional

support through their gifts to the University of

Ceorgia Foundation. The Ceorgia Museum of

Art's hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Tuesday,

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

on Wednesday; and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m' on Sunday.

Visit our website at wwwuga'edu/gamuseum'

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