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The results of creative partnerships within nine pairs of artists will be displayed in “Synthesis: Experiments in Collaboration,” an exhibition in the Grossman Gallery of Lafayette’s Williams Visual Arts Building from Oct. 18-Nov. 29.
Curated by Merijn van der Heijden and Ron Janowich, the exhibit will open with a reception 4-5:30 p.m. on its first day at the Grossman Gallery, followed by a panel discussion concluding at 6:15 p.m.
The artists were chosen for the exhibition based on their willingness to explore the essence of the other’s work, regardless of having already established an existing collaborative body of work.
“Collaboration is an investment and therefore not merely a projection of one’s own aesthetic based on someone else’s art,” says Janowich, “but much more a synthesis of two individuals.”
Collaborating has the exciting potential to allow for a new language to emerge that is not owned by either participant, but is rather part of each, according to the curators.
“It has been our hope that the artist teams would work together because they intuit this possibility,” says van der Heijden. “Collaborating thus seems to be an exiting way to put aside one’s own set of contingencies and therefore access the essence of another’s work in a practice that is honest and beyond any critique-based system of understanding.”
One of the artist pairs is Ed Kerns, Eugene H. Clapp II ’36 Professor of Art, the Williams Visual Arts Building’s director, and Joe Biondo, architect of the Visual Arts Building, who worked together to plan the design and construction of the facility. They both have interests in using materials to symbolically define space by contrasting nature’s internal processes and the external solutions of design. Their collaborative work strongly suggests “that renewed perceptions of space, distance, and time are measures of the narrowing gap between the internal and external realities of humanity’s collective consciousness.”
Jeb Madigan ’04, a double major in art and English from Binghamton, N.Y., assisted in the production of components for the project. Madigan created molds and cast over 100 polyurethane foot-long fish. The resulting translucent, amber fish will rise from the lighted, pre-existing elevator pit in the rear of the Grossman Gallery. The Quadrant Book Mart & Coffeehouse in downtown Easton exhibited 11 oil paintings by Madigan from Sept. 7-Oct. 3, and upcoming shows of his work are scheduled at Jac and Co. in Easton and Zazou Restaurant in Binghamton.
Jim Clark and Creighton Michael created two autonomous, yet complementary works for the exhibition. The result is an environment activated by motion, resulting in a dance of primary colors, light, and shadows, activating a “conversation” between Clark’s suspended columns and Michael’s large three-dimensional drawing.
Brian Davis and Jon Rajkovich address the experience of modern institutional architecture. They use the archetypal institutional building as a starting point in their collaborative process, evoking past impressions that Davis and Rajkovich then mix with elements of their own imagination.
Angie Drakoupolis and Daniel Hill will present their project “Mythograph,” a digital video projection that combines animation and sound. Using pulsating images that represent a diagram of the inner ear, accompanied by a harmonious composition of sound, Drakoupolis and Hill seek “to bring the mind in a state of equilibrium, to experience the space between thoughts and words, the space where imagination and myth are generated.”
David Humphrey and Jennifer Coates have been making collaborative paintings and drawings since they first met in 1996. What started as an improvisatory back and forth slowly evolved into a game-like operation. Their process follows an imperative to amuse and surprise, in which “habits are disabled, inhibitions dissolved, misremembering and skill shortcomings encouraged, and individual voices lost and found again.”
Van der Heijden and Janowich have worked through a series of investigations in a variety of media, including as digital prints, painting, photography, and sound. The idea of synthesis grew when they became interested in each other’s methods, viewpoints, and art-making rules. At first glance it seems they are preoccupied with almost opposite strategies: taking material away to reveal a clean and unobstructed image versus adding to create a multi-layered transparency.
Despite their mutual interest in language, interference, borders, and structural visibility, Laura Lisbon and Suzanne Maura Silver decided to collaborate by documenting the processes in their individual works through an online exchange of ideas rather than working on the same canvas or sheet of paper. For their collaboration they are interested in the simultaneity and mutual interference of layered mark-making in paint and pencil.
Craig Miller and Sean Miller will exhibit a series of handcrafted shipping crates. The series of crates collectively function as a miniature museum space. The interiors of the crates contain individual miniature galleries. Miller and Miller will, in turn, expand on the idea of collaboration and curate several artists to occupy each single gallery space.
Sybrigje Westerhof and Marijan Vos bring to the exhibition a shared background and interest in both autonomous art and applied design. They became interested in investigating the question of when a design becomes decoration, and where the fine line between an autonomous piece of art and a decorative work can be drawn.
In addition to Madigan, three Lafayette art majors will help with installation of the exhibition: Elizabeth Robb ’05 (Cumberland, Md.), who also is majoring in anthropology and sociology; Elizabeth King ’04 (Milford, N.J.), also an International Economics and Commerce major; and Kelly Russell ’04 (Brick, N.J.), also an English major.
The 23,500-square-foot Williams Visual Arts Building is one of the leading high-tech facilities for art education and exhibitions in the nation. It includes sculpture and painting studios, a community-based teaching studio, the Grossman Gallery, a flexible studio area with movable walls for honors and independent study students, a seminar room, a conference room, and faculty studios and offices.
The building is home to the studio art program. The classrooms are adjacent to professors’ personal studios, which encourages the free exchange of ideas between students and faculty. Honors students, faculty, and visiting professional artists work together with area high school and adult art students through the Community-Based Teaching Program, which is led by sculptor Jim Toia, who also directs the Grossman Gallery.