PUBLISHED January 14th, 2013 03:31 am | UPDATED January 21st, 2016 08:07 am
An exhibition with the title, ‘Keep it Simple Keep it Fresh’ – now that’s my kind of exhibition, because after all, shouldn’t most of us be living by that mantra?
The words are those of internationally acclaimed American artist John Baldessari (known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images), whose collaboration with fellow renowned U.S. artist Meg Cranston (her work has flowed in and out of every imaginable medium over the years) is the centre of the exhibition officially opening the Michael Janssen Gallery at Gillman Barracks this month.
The presence of the gallery – which brings a slice of the happening Berlin art scene to Singapore for the first time – is exciting enough. Expect emerging, mid-career and established artists from South East Asia, Europe and North America being showcased here. But on top of this the gallery is kicking things off for 2013 with an exhibition featuring this enticing collaboration.
The exhibition sees the marriage of the text as featured in its title – Cranston’s favourite words from a book authored by Baldessari, Advice to Young Artists, forty plus years ago. The words have been updated into a context of the latest colours that the Pantone Corporation (which is basically the world’s authority on colour, no less) have forecasted as the fashion colours for 2013, inspired by her fascination with the changing colours in fashion.
Collaboration is not something new to the two artists, having collaborated a few times before. This time it is these words, which are fundamental to Baldessari’s approach as an artist, that bind their work together: ‘Whatever you decide to do, remember to keep it simple, keep it fresh, and have some idea of what you are going to do’ – which was the advice they decided to take for their own exhibition. Smart cookies.
We got five minutes with the artists to find out more about the collaboration:
What is it like working together and how do you think this will translate over to what audiences will see?
We find working together fun. We hope that translates to the audience. We have a somewhat similar sensibility or at least share a similar sense of the absurd. We both strive to be as direct as possible in our work. John’s contribution to the collaboration is his ability to simplify without losing profundity. Meg brings in things nobody else would think of. We don’t know of another artist using Pantone colour forecasting as a way to choose colours in painting the way Meg has been doing. It’s sort of nuts but it works. The paintings look very fresh and that was the goal.
Could you talk us through the creation of a work that you collaborated on and how it came about from conceptualization to fruition?
John wrote the text used in the painting in 1968 as part of a longer piece called Advice to Young Artists. John and Meg are working on a book that includes the 1968 text. Meg has been doing works that use the current top fashion colours. Michael Janssen invited us to do a show together. We thought that might be interesting but we didn’t want to merge our individual styles too much. We wanted to each do our own thing but have that work well together. We decided to layer John’s text from 1968 over Meg’s monochrome paintings that use the fashion colours for Spring 2013. We wanted to approach the show exactly as the text recommends. We tried to keep it simple and up-to-date.
What are the challenges of collaborating?
We haven’t really experienced it but collaborations can become power struggles. If both people want to control the outcome absolutely, collaborations probably get pretty tense. When you work with another artist you have to welcome some unexpected outcomes. That’s the whole point of working with another artist, to generate something you wouldn’t get to on your own. Having said that, we like to collaborate in a way that gives each of us autonomy. Though we didn’t have a real agreement on this we sort of naturally set up a division of labour. John had total control over the text. He obviously wrote it but also designed how it looked graphically. Meg had total control over the colour and scale of the works. Together we fussed over all the other details.
Do you see yourselves collaborating again in the future?
That’s a funny question because in truth we have never decided to collaborate on anything. The collaborations have always come about because someone invites us to do something. It’s always fun but we never plan it. If someone invites us we might collaborate again but we don’t have any definite plans.
What do you want audiences in Singapore to take away from your works?
We hope they enjoy the works as much as we do. With luck we will give the audience something to see, something to think about and with luck, some joy.
Keep it Simple Keep it Fresh runs from 19th January – 10thth March at the Michael Janssen Gallery, Gillman Barracks, 9 Lock Road, 108937. Admission: Free. Gallery opening hours from 18th January onwards: Tuesday to Saturday 12pm – 7pm, Sunday 12pm – 6pm. For more information, see their
Facebook page here.