The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

61 Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia under the Ongania dictatorship in Argentina, to the Stars in post-Cultural Revolution China, to the Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru Indonesia (New Indonesian Art Movement) during the Suharto era, artist groups have pushed for broader possibilities for art, which, in many cases, are closely allied with alternative political models. 2 Artistic collaboration can, however, take in a wide range of structures: artist duos, collectives, artist groups, art societies and artist-run initiatives, any of which may be temporary or ongoing. It can also extend to include the teamwork of art-making itself; that is, working with technicians, assistants, fabricators and/or artisans in the production process. Each collaboration has its own reason for forming, and its own particular dynamics in terms of authorship and attribution, process and final outcome. What they share is the acknowledgment of art as a fundamentally social activity, rather than a rarefied, autonomous production of objects by an individual ‘genius’, which has long been a basis for artistic value. In his study on collaboration, Charles Green observes: . . . teamwork in post-1960s art challenged not only the terms in which artistic identity was conventionally conceived but also the ‘frame’ — the discursive boundary between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of a work of art’. 3 When these social relationships are made explicit in the work, it not only shifts the nature of an art work’s authorship, but also its context — not least the transition out of the studio and into the world. A key aspect of APT6 is the large number of artists who work in collaboration with others, be they other artists, practitioners from different disciplines, or gallery audiences. The motivations and configurations vary, but, in each case, the relationships between collaborators are intrinsic to the process of making, and are in some way constituted in the final form of the work. This includes the ‘exquisite corpse’ sequence of drawings that comprises The One Year Drawing Project 2005–07, passed from one artist to another across Sri Lanka — a political gesture at a time of civil war. There is the combination of skills and traditions employed in the Fijian masi (barkcloth) work Teitei vou (A new garden) 2009 by Leba Toki, Bale Jione and Robin White, and Shirana Shahbazi’s commissioning of Iranian billboard painters to translate her still-life photographs into vast canvases. There is the freestanding ‘cinema’ designed by Tobias Putrih to screen Runa Islam’s film The Restless Subject 2008, as well as the ‘hut’ constructed by the design firm graf to contain a room of art works by Yoshitomo Nara, recreating the atmosphere of the artist’s workspace as a hub of interconnected ideas. The Australian group DAMP has created a ‘cubby-house’ inside a huge plinth for visitors to spend time in, featuring items from their shared studio in Melbourne, while Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s In-flight (Project: Another Country) 2009 comprises hundreds of tiny aeroplanes made by children in the Gallery and from all over Queensland. Charwei Tsai works with local Buddhist monks to inscribe the Heart Sutra onto mushrooms for the duration of the exhibition, while her video projections are made to be viewed on the hands, physically involving Gallery visitors in the activation of her images. Whatever their rationale, collaborations such as these bring, in a sense, the ‘private’ activities of the studio into the public eye. Artistic collaboration, as critic John Roberts has argued: . . . directly involves shaping the ways in which art finds its sensuous and intellectual place in the world. In this it draws into view the very nature of how, and under what conditions, art might appear in the world. 4 YNG Yoshitomo Nara Japan b.1959 graf Japan est. 1993 Torre di Malaga (Tower of Malaga) (detail) 2007 Installation view, CAC, Malaga / Image courtesy: The artists and Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo / Photograph: Hako Hosokawa Left Tun Win Aung Myanmar b.1975 Wah Nu Myanmar b.1977 Blurring the Boundaries #1 2007–09 Digital print / 42 x 59cm / Image courtesy: The artists Right Runa Islam Bangladesh/United Kingdom b.1970 The Restless Subject 2008 16mm film and CD wild tracks, colour, sound, 6:42 minutes and Tobias Putrih Slovenia b.1972 For The Restless Subject 2008 Plywood / 343 x 350 x 460cm / Installation view / Image courtesy: The artists and White Cube, London / Photograph: Todd-White Art Photography