Painting: A Collaborative Medium

This paper will assert that the medium of Painting, in its current iteration should be understood as collaborative, and reveal that artists often produce painting objects through collaboration. The teaching of painting therefore ought to reflect these recent developments both practically and theoretically.

Since the 1950s, the medium of Painting has formed collaborations with other mediums. As a result, painting now operates in a field of practice commonly referred to as the Expanded Field of Painting. These collaborations were made evident in the exhibition Painting 2.0 Expression in the Information Age (2015–2016).

Furthermore, the artists who opt for collaborative strategies to produce paintings, promote audience participation, meaning painting has entered a social realm. I promoted, instructionalised and ‘do-it-yourself’ practices in my own curatorial project Painting in Time: Part Two (2016) staged at the Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute Chicago. The exhibition included SAIC students alongside artists Yoko Ono, Debo Eilers, Lisa Milroy and Polly Apfelbaum.

Painting pedagogy must keep pace with the mediums collaborative and social expansion. Alongside the two exhibitions mentioned above, the following works will be discussed to support this equally expanded painting curriculum; Helio Oiticica’s Parangolés designed to be worn and danced in, Yoko Ono’s instructionalised paintings (1963), Natasha Kidd’s painting machines (2015), Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Portrait Series (1991) and Daniel Buren’s staged paintings (1973).