MAKING IT TOGETHER / MAKING IT ALONE
CREATIVE RESEARCH LABORATORY
07/01/06 - 08/31/06
Making it together, with a partner, as a duo, with the rest of the world, having lunch and talking over your plans, interviewing, building models, building a home together, taking a vacation, putting it onto film and taking snapshots, healing the world one person at time, drawing, painting, firing up the kiln, staring at the keyboard, hugs, fists, missed phone calls and a few stressed out emails, “I’m never working with him again,” “never with her again,” one collective vision, many fractured visions, making the deadline, moving the deadline, moving it again, leading to the party, opening the doors, letting the viewer in. We made this together.
In Making It Together we have tried to stretch the conventional definition of collaboration. Every summer show starts as a collaboration between the Studio Art and the Art History Departments. Each year a group of volunteer art historians put out a call to artists who may be interested in exhibiting their works in the summer shows. The challenge of this collaboration is how to cobble together these sometimes disparate groups of people and objects to find new threads of meaning. This year we hope to present an exhibition that is not only a collaboration between two departments but also between artists as well.
Some of the artists in Making It Together have chosen to create a new work together. Others feel their individual work speaks directly to the work of another artist. In other cases artists have found their collaborators in you the viewer; they challenge you to step up, not just look, but to interact as well.
These catalogues are a product of collaboration as well. Writers drew inspiration from the artists with whom they were paired. Writers, editors, and designers then worked to present an integrated vision of Making It Together.
The first of the summer exhibitions, Making It Alone, presented artwork within a conventional gallery context. Back in April when we conducted studio visits there were artists who felt that their work should stand alone. These artists became the backbone of our first exhibition. Other artists found the idea of collaboration intriguing and decided to pursue making work within this context. These artists have contributed to this exhibition. Together the shows present individuals in dialogue with themselves and others. In the end we are all making it together.