Queensland Art Gallery - Queensland Government

Collaborative works register art’s grounding in interactions between people, with all the
negotiations and decisions that this entails. They might make us aware of artistic divisions
of labour, in which particular skills or activities are delegated amongst individuals; or of the
constructed nature of a form or style that is, by definition, not the outcome of a single ‘hand’.
In the case of temporary projects, such as Tsai’s and the Aquilizans’, the primary focus is not
the final art work, but rather the act of making, with the Gallery itself becoming the studio.
This latter form of practice — often loosely described as relational or participatory art — has
become increasingly prevalent since the 1990s, and has been a strong presence in past APTs.
These include works such as Surasi Kusolwong’s Ruen pae (During the moments of the day)
1999–2000, featuring a structure based on a Thai floating house in which the audience was
invited to rest and contemplate, and Lee Mingwei’s Writing the unspoken 1999, a series of three
sculptural booths in which visitors could write personal letters.
The number of collaborative works in APT6 is a reflection of its importance to contemporary
art-making, not only in the Asia Pacific region, but internationally. Collaboration did not begin as
a prescribed theme for the exhibition, but is rather an element that appeared again and again
when looking at how artists are working today. Wit Pimkanchanapong, for example, often works
across the disciplines of art, design and architecture, and regularly collaborates with Jiro Endo,
Pitupong Chaowakul, and others as Soi Project. The work Fruits 2007–09, featured in APT6, is an
interactive project that invites the audience to construct paper fruit out of preprinted templates.
The task of folding the paper and joining the tabs is likened by Pimkanchanapong to the
process of communication, with the paper models contributing to a fruit stall-style installation
or kept for the contribution of a donation equalling the real fruit’s market price. Soi Project
enables Pimkanchanapong to develop the kinds of experimental, cross-disciplinary works that
he would not be able to realise alone; the word soi (‘small street’ in Thai) evokes connections
made between people in an urban environment.
For Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, the decision to work collaboratively came out of shared
interests and backgrounds, and developed organically as their process of emailing concepts
back and forth during art school began to coalesce as concrete projects. 5 Under the moniker
Thukral and Tagra, as well as the label Bosedk Designs, they have been working across the
areas of art and design since 2000. Their works are developed digitally before being realised as
paintings, sculptures and installations, enabling a fluid and responsive circulation of images and
ideas. Their approach reflects a more recent form of collective work, which, rather than rejecting
the promotion of artistic identity, heartily embraces it, creating their own ‘brand’. The power of the
market to absorb even some of the most resistant activities, and the shifts in identity formation
that technology has brought, has led to collaborative strategies that work with, rather than
against, consumer and media culture. Recent artist groups, according to critic Pamela M Lee:
. . . are as likely to shadow the logic of the corporation as that of the co-op, as predisposed
to emulate the thinktank as the factory floor . . . the appearance of these new collectives . . .
announces a marked shift from the ways collectives have been historically imagined relative
to their ideological filiations. 6
Yoshitomo Nara and graf’s collaborations are also presented under a ‘brand’ name, YNG, and
have been produced in gallery spaces all over the world. Sometimes working with local people
to construct them, each installation features Nara’s works within a structure, or ‘hut’, created by
graf, which reflects the architecture of its location, be it Yogyakarta, Seoul, Malaga or Brisbane.
The ‘huts’ erect a kind of barrier between the works and the museum’s white walls, enabling Nara
Wit Pimkanchanapong
Thailand b.1976
Fruits 2007
Installation view, Sharjah Biennale 2007 / Image courtesy:
The artist
Thukral and Tagra
Jiten Thukral
India b.1976
Sumir Tagra
India b.1979
Effugio (escape) 2008
Installation view, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo / Image
courtesy: The artists and Gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi
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