Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism - Hardcover

Green, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816637121 ISBN 13: 9780816637126

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, 2001

Synopsis

The lone artist is a worn cliche of art history but one that still defines how we think about the production of art. Since the 1960s, however, a number of artists have challenged this image by embarking on long-term collaborations that dramatically altered the terms of artistic identity. In The Third Hand, Charles Green offers a sustained critical examination of collaboration in international contemporary art, tracing its origins from the evolution of conceptual art in the 1960s into such stylistic labels as Earth Art, Systems Art, Body Art, and Performance Art. During this critical period, artists around the world began testing the limits of what art could be, how it might be produced, and who the artist is. Collaboration emerged as a prime way to reframe these questions.Green looks at three distinct types of collaboration: the highly bureaucratic identities created by Joseph Kosuth, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, and other members of Art & Language in the late 1960s; the close-knit relationships based on marriage or lifetime partnership as practiced by the Boyle Family, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison; and couples -- like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Gilbert & George, or Marina Abramovic and Ulay -- who developed third identities, effacing the individual artists almost entirely. These collaborations, Green contends, resulted in new and, at times, extreme authorial models that continue to inform current thinking about artistic identity and to illuminate the origins of postmodern art, suggesting, in the process, a new genealogy for art in the twenty-first century.

About this title

Review

"This is a clearly argued, original, and highly illuminating book that provides a genuinely new way of looking at contemporary art 'on the cusp, ' as the author puts it, between modernism and postmodernism. The decision to focus on the notion of collaboration has been used to open up a series of fascinating case studies associated with specific collaborative enterprises." --Stephen Bann, University of Bristol

This is a clearly argued, original, and highly illuminating book that provides a genuinely new way of looking at contemporary art on the cusp, as the author puts it, between modernism and postmodernism. The decision to focus on the notion of collaboration has been used to open up a series of fascinating case studies associated with specific collaborative enterprises. Stephen Bann, University of Bristol"

As one of the artists Green discusses, I thought Yes, this is exactly how it happened. Readers will be inspired to know more about each of the collaborative artists included in this exceptional book. Marina Abramovic
"

"As one of the artists Green discusses, I thought 'Yes, this is exactly how it happened.' Readers will be inspired to know more about each of the collaborative artists included in this exceptional book." --Marina Abramovic

About the Author

Charles Green is an artist and a lecturer in the School of Art History and Theory at the University of New South Wales. He is the Australian correspondent for Artforum and author of Peripheral Vision: Contemporary Australian Art 1970 94 (1995)."

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816637121
• ISBN 13: 9780816637126
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 268