During a visit to www.metalculture.com/liverpool/ this week, I met sculptor Phil (www.artinliverpool.com/phillockhart) who will be showing in the same forthcoming exhibition there as Ailis and myself. We had a good natter and after the traditional (and enjoyable) artist-meets-artist moan and groan, we got round to talking about the point of collaborations… We agreed that collaborations shouldn’t be about blindly adhering to current favourable critical discourse (collaborations are not about joining the popular queue or coveting the fact that your surnames joined together with and an “&” look good), they should be about enjoying the freedom of being a bit scared.
Phil seemed concerned that he was a bit of a control freak and therefore unsuited to collaboration. I have two issues with that: firstly, that I can’t think of many artists who aren’t control freaks and secondly, that if you think your control freakery is a problem, that’s all the more reason to try collaboration – it forces you into letting go. You just have to bear in mind that the best AND worst you can expect from a collaboration is the unexpected… and that’s why it is scary.
