On Collaboration

Aristotle said “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, “it is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” said Darwin and “I believe that collaboration is the solution and may bring us the harmony which would liberate art from its boundless confusion”, added Hans Arp.

            Collaboration (between individuals in particular as opposed to collaboration between artist and audience) is increasingly becoming a popular way of operating in the contemporary art world, perhaps challenging the image of the artist as; ‘heroic’ ‘not dependent’ ‘solitary figure’ in a continuous ‘inner struggle’ or perhaps asking for a redefinition of artistic practice which in turn asks for a redefinition of art and culture, pointing out the necessity of going ‘beyond the making of exhibitions’ or perhaps it's a natural need/necessary consequence of hybridization of cultures associated with globalization. Whatever the case may be, such practice raises questions about authorship, authenticity and most importantly the artists’ relationship to each other, their work and their audience.

            One such example is a recent collaboration between Damon Kowarsky and Atif Khan (both strictly print makers), titled ‘Hybrid’, exhibited at Rohtas2, from Nov 20th to dec 1st, 2012. Kowarsky, who hails from Austrailia is not a stranger to this country, he has visited Pakistan three or four times before, has displayed his work in Lahore and Islamabad and has conducted print making workshops at art schools in Lahore and Karachi. Khan on the other hand has been trained as a printmaker at National college of Arts and has taught at his alma mater since, while taking a few years off to work in UK.

            The work itself wasn’t any different from what we are normally used to encountering at galleries, most of which is sheer repetition and unconsidered political and cultural mysticism that tiers one’s eyes and brain with its uninspiring symbolism. Fortunately this body of work spared me the enervating monotony of beards, burqas and flags but did present itself with guns, drones, geometric patterns and the Mughal kings. But of course, art is not created in a vacuum, and is undoubtedly a product of the socio-political environment in which artists work. As I try to deal with my lack of response to the works in the show, I have (for a change) decided to not brood over the unsettling debates about looking, seeing, experiencing, pleasure, beauty, judgements, subjectivity, universality and function, but direct my attention towards the notion of ‘collaboration’ which is a rare instance in our part of the world.

            The need for constructivist and dialogical methods of production has become ever more important in times of deep felt uncertainities like today’s. The blurring of the boundaries between artistic disciplines and various vocations associated with arts (such as; curator, critic, historian, e.t.c), and Walter Benjamin’s idea of the ‘author as producer’, among other postmodern discussions, is a call for active engagement with social politics rather than responding from a removed, observational vantage point. Although ‘author’ and ‘producer’ both ‘make’, ‘create’, ‘give birth to’, e.t.c but perhaps Benjamin like Nato Thompson (American curator) finds some conditions by which the two differ considerably from each other. Thompson is of the opinion that part of being a producer means, letting go of individual conceit, which is perhaps unthinkable for an author/artist. A producer’s responsibilities are perhaps more managerial and the widely accepted belief in art as self-expression, makes the idea of such an artist sound suspicious. To Thompson, strategies of resistance require a forgoing of individual genius, when revolutionary power lies in the autonomy of the collective idea, not in the autonomy of an individual. And this empowerment perhaps comes from the notion of responsibility and accountability (to one another).

            In the light of Thompson’s views, the history of collaborative art practice and my own 6 years long collaboration with Hurmat ul Ain, and other project based collaborations with artists, writers and curators, the questions of subjectivity, originality and authorship are not so relevant anymore but why and how this method of production is employed, is certainly a question worth asking, the answer to which, is slightly absent in the work itself. Besides a corporatist ideology that promotes networking, the ‘need’ to collaborate as a method of generating, mediating and reflecting experience and knowledge, should be more genuine. What it needs to operate on is; common goals and a common vision that guides their work through negotiations, as stakeholders per se. What letting go of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, brings forth is only the strengths of both the individuals in a singular voice as ‘us’. But despite the fact that these personal narratives, though portrayed as autobiographical are not actually solipsistic, but neither are they in ‘unison’. The individuality of both the artists, within a singular work, is kept intact. The documentary like entries of khan’s very local landscape often identified by Kowarsky’s very foreign vantage point, in the form of titles, is worth mentioning. However, questions about style and technique remain more relevant than anything else, which perhaps is an evidence of naivety.