Blog 20

Where do our notions of visual art as a solitary activity come from? What are the benefits and limitations of engaging in collaborative works of art?



Historically, we art taught that artists are solitary individuals, often misunderstood by society, who struggle to release their creative vision. They are inherently solitary. I believe that our modern notions of visual art as a solitary activity comes from our early childhood experiences. Ever since preschool or elementary, we were taught that art is individualistic and everyone's art is unique. Art was introduced to us as an independent activity. Creating our own art shows, accomplishing our own achievements in skills and techniques, and completing a piece of work shows our level of success in making art.

One of the benefits of creating collaborative works of art is that the work includes more than one artistic style and idea. It teaches us to cooperate with others, and compromise so that their ideas and our own are incorporated into one piece of artwork. A limitation in collabortive art is that it becomes harder to express individual artistic impressions or ideas. As a child or an adult, you would feel uncomfortable when someone modifies or changes "your" artwork, because then it is no longer yours.