ArtPrize Blog

Eyes on the Prize: The Collective Experience

Nicole Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York and frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. She’ll walk around ArtPrize, observe, listen and write about her experience here. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

The Moving Crew Art Collective, "The Official Bureau of Art Quality & Standards", 2009. ArtPrize, Old Federal Building, Grand Rapids, MI. Photo: N. Caruth

When Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, addressed the Kendall College of Art and Design last week, he focused his talk on notions of community. “All of us belong to multiple communities,” he said. Apropos of nothing, I’ve been exploring the little communities within ArtPrize known as collectives. How do these artist groups further encourage and create community?

Collectives were a hot topic in contemporary art a few years ago. In 2006, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter addressed this recurring trend in his article, The Collective Consciousness. He wrote:

“Basically, art collectives do away with the one-artist-one-object model. They come in various sizes and formats: couples, quartets, teams, tribes and amorphous cyberspace communities. Sometimes a group of artists assumes the identity of a single person; sometimes, a single artist assumes the identity of many…they may or may not refer to their activities as art. Joint production…scrambles existing aesthetic formulas. It may undermine the cult of the artist as media star, dislodge the supremacy of the precious object and unsettle the economic structures that make the art world a mirror image of the inequities of American culture at large. In short, it confuses how we think about art and assign value to it.”

Cotter’s piece boils down to real insider art world stuff like the affairs and absurdities of the art market. But his characterization of collectives is still broadly applicable. He suggests that these groups are less interested in producing art objects than in providing an experience. The experience of community is just as important as a community itself. Here’s a few collectives at ArtPrize that I believe model these ideas:

The Moving Crew Art Collective — In The Official Bureau of Art Quality & Standards at the Old Federal Building, artists play “pompous art experts” and attempt to educate the public about art and art history. Basically, they “get” art and you don’t. By supplying the ArtPrize community with the knowledge they supposedly need to view objects, the Bureau contributes to the greater good of humanity. This tongue-in-cheek critique of art world experts recalls early practices by artists like Andrea Fraser and Fred Wilson, who used the very institutions that exhibited their work to address problems within institutions. Part performance, part installation, the Bureau  includes of old glass cases reminiscent of those that display archeological finds. They are filled with ready-made tools — binoculars, magnifying lenses, syringes and teeth — used for learning and discovery. At the desk buttons, fliers, brochures and other ephemera are free for the taking. Though I haven’t been able to catch up with the artists/experts who sometimes man the desk, I did take away a handy leaflet about Dangerous Art Encounters. Tip #3: Do not stare directly at a dangerous artwork. This is a sign of aggression. Tip# 13: If you carry pepper spray, be sure that you have trained with it before trusting it during an art attack.

"Gretchen Deems rides across Calder Plaza participating in the BIGthink project." ArtPrize, Calder Plaza/Grand Rapids City Hall, 2009. Courtesy Chris Clark/The Grand Rapids Press

BIGThink — On Saturday, this art, education and technology collaborative filled Calder Plaza with their interactive performance, Creating Community. Through the experience of shared labor the collective fosters a sense of community. BIGThink workers solicited the public’s help with their central installation, a red tentacled and inflated dome made to symbolize the human brain’s creative capacity. If, like me, you missed their mini-carnival, you can still see their ArtPrize installation – an iridescent fun-house filled with their signature translucent figures – at Grand Rapids City Hall. Unfortunately, you can’t tumble around inside the piece, but it’s still worth visiting.

Beerhorst Family Wonder Wagon — This Von Trap-like collective comprises music, performance, painting and sculpture. The Beerhorst family are local artists who show artwork in their home and work to make art accessible through interaction and collective art making. (Their slogan is “community though creativity.”) Their activities take place around a central wagon – a work of art filled with art. You can find this living installation by furniture designer and sculptor Cameron Van Dyke; painter and printmaker Rick Beerhorst; and the family crew nestled along a path not far from the Blue Bridge. The whole thing is a little too cultish in appearance for my taste, but I can’t deny that providing a space for anyone and everyone to make and experience art is awesome. That’s what ArtPrize is all about.

Activesite, "Artspace", 2009. ArtPrize, Peck Building. Photo: N. Caruth

ACTIVESITE — I’ve been to this installation, dubbed “Artspace,” three times and I still don’t quite understand what I’m supposed to see or do. A helpful tidbit that I learned after their ping pong party last night is that the walls are sculpture, the performance is the environment, you are the art. The fact that I keep going back when I don’t quite get it must mean there’s still something to be discovered. Several artist were involved in creating this environment, but their ArtPrize entry is a single object: a (very loud) canon toward the back of the space that shoots balls across the ceiling. What people seem to be drawn to more are a selection of silk-screened t-shirts sold from a case just behind the cannon. Designs change daily; you can purchase a tee for $10.

The New Deal — Vote is a 20-foot high metalwork fork designed by this collective design team. Located in the kitchen garden of restaurant six.one.six of the J.W. Marriott, the sculpture is designed to celebrate local food, local economies, healthful communities and the power of our collective forks — the foodie arts. I haven’t seen this piece yet, so I can’t speak to the experience or artistic merit of a big fork. What this sculpture represents however should be of interest to everyone. I’m all for using art to start a conversation about food and health in any and all communities.

Stafford Smith and Ritsu Katsumata, "Fearscape", 2009. ArtPrize, Old Federal Building. Photo: N. Caruth

Stafford Smith and Ritsu Katsumata — Now, this husband wife duo don’t call themselves a collective, but I’m including them anyway. Their installation Fearscape, located on the second floor of the Old Federal Building, combines music and art in a live duet between electric violin and a digital camera. Video footage of assassinations, violence, civil strife and terrorists are the backdrop to a series of small televisions, which you can view even when the duo is not present. The piece responds to “the climate of fear perpetuated by mass media and the obsession with having the latest data.” (My love-hate relationship with Twitter comes to mind.) It might go without saying that community is key to social media. As addicted as I am to these technologies, I appreciate that Smith and Katsumata have created an experience that addresses problems that come with having access to too much information all the time.

LOL Collective — This two-person collective also explores ways we communicate today, particularly text messaging and online chat through which new languages have developed and continue to form. The starting point for this collaboration between Terrence Jon Dyck and Leon Enriquez is a mixed-media painting by Dyck, entitled Laugh Out Loud (LOL). Your laughter is their medium. (I’m already chuckling at the thought of trying to suss this out at the B.O.B.)

When I started thinking about collectives at ArtPrize, my initial thought was that many hands on deck would mean the ability to achieve more than a single artist. Or that more voices would equal more votes. Of course, that’s not what we have seen thus far. When I spoke to Weinberg about this idea, he referred to Rebecca Klobucher’s interactive project, A Line, which invites viewers to outline cracks in the city with chalk. Though the work of a single artist that is easily missed, Weinberg explained how the piece brought him into the process of making art and made him feel like part of a community. “It might have washed away in last night’s rain,” he said, but for him it wasn’t about the permanence of the piece, it was about the experience of being part of art.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. In the comment forum, feel free to let me and readers know about other collectives involved in ArtPrize.