corporate culture
The common research practice of the collective Various Artists is the sustainability of the artist as a brand. This long term investigation includes different stages, and results in small scale maquettes or working methods.
Until the beginning of autumn 2015 Various Artists approached this research as a collective of individuals. The focus was on the one hand on the individual works and on the other hand on co-creation, resulted in collaborations of two to four artists of VA, the so-called ‘duets’. This phase of research was concluded in "Q and A" an important presentation moment at Galeria Continua in San Gigmignano.
Currently, Various Artists is exploring the collective as a committee that makes design and presentation decisions based on the principle of exclusion. Exclusion can be seen here as an experimental technique or method to counter the current trend of viewing artists as brands or unconnected personalities.
Concretely, this means that members of the collective work together as a committee when it comes to presenting and designing artworks. Before an art piece is shown to the public, the committee, comprising all members of the collective except the artist themself, comes together to produce or rework the art piece. The idea is to exclude the artist’s aesthetic and distance the personality from the concept, purifying the final exhibited piece.
This research challenges the limits of the art market and explores the boundaries of collective authorship. We want to question the worshipping of the artist who, once established, can seemingly produce anything as long as it’s signed. What if ‘the aesthetic signature’ of an artist is excluded from their body of work? What if a piece of art were to be signed by a committee of artists? Would the piece still be viable for sale?