ARTH 368 - Aspects of Contemporary Art: Artist Collaborations Since the 1960s

• Thursdays, 18:00-20:15
• EV-1-615
• Instructor: Laurie Milner

Why do artists collaborate? What forms do their collaborations take? What do collaborations tell us about the makers’ concepts of self, other, place and community, and what do they reveal about our own? In this course, we will explore the rich ecology of collaborative and participatory art practices that took root in the West during the Cold War and expanded and diversified in the three decades since. We will consider artist-artist, artist-other and artist-community collaborations in relation to art-historical, cultural, social, economic and political circumstances. Under what conditions have artists collaborated? Toward what ends? What are the challenges of collaboration? What is achieved through collaboration? On what terms can collaborative art be evaluated? While our main focus will be on artist collaborations in North America and Europe during this sixty-year period, we will also include examples of collaborative art practices in a broader, global context. Indigenous collaborations and participatory projects will be of particular interest throughout the course, as will questions about what we, as art historians and artists, can do to realize meaningful partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people?