Sculptomatic: An Exhibition in Two Parts

‘Sculptomatic’ is a collaborative two-part project that examines how two artists can work together collaboratively and make new and original works of art while challenging conventional ideas of authorship and ownership in art making.

In ‘Sculptomatic’ this concept was extended by inviting twenty people to participate in producing original artworks. The process referred to ideas of the academy and the act of individual/collective making.

In ‘Sculptomatic 2’ a site-specific installation by Dunhill & O’Brien was exhibited at the Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, Holland (May 2005) and used the five exhibition rooms of the two-floor gallery. The installation was based on research into the nature of collaborative practice and reflected upon the questions that collaboration raises around authorship and authenticity.

The work involved twelve participants working for two days to make clay models based on 500 images of sculptures from prehistory to the present, selected from formal criteria. These models were then dropped from a moving conveyor belt on the second floor into a vitrine on the first floor to form into a new sculpture, the result of much effort and ‘cultural dialogue’. The whole process of production was evident in the installation that incorporated all of the elements used to make the work and a video that documented the clay models dropping into the vitrine.

Tamiko O'Brien

Biography

Since 1998 Tamiko O'Brien has been working collaboratively with Mark Dunhill. Dunhill and O'Brien's work has involved large-scale motorised installations, site based works, video, photography, small multiples and posters. O'Brien is also involved in pedagogic research through her involvement in Paradox, the Fine Art European Forum.

Current Research

One of the primary tasks in Dunhill and O'Brien's collaborative practice has been to work out how to make sculpture unhampered by the burden of taste or the 'hand of the artist'. This quest has led them to devise elaborate strategies, mechanisms and processes involving elements of chance, remote control and other peoples' aesthetic decisions.

While their work is clearly concerned with questions of authorship, veracity, 'craftsmanship', the performative aspects of making and the peculiar and problematic status of sculpture it also sets out to reflect upon the nature of human endeavour, aspiration and futility.

Through their art practice and other forms of investigation Dunhill and O'Brien have researched the motivations, issues and dilemmas that arise when artists choose to work together.
www.collabarts.org ,co-edited and curated by Dunhill and O'Brien, was established in December 2005 as a resource and platform for artists, theorists and art students offering a source of information, dissemination and discussion about collaborative art practice.

Pedagogic Research

In 2004 Tamiko O'Brien was a founding member of Paradox, the Fine Art European Forum, an independent network working under the umbrella of The European League of Institutes of the Arts. Since that time she has chaired Paradox meetings and a conference; established the Paradox website http:paradox.wimbledon.ac.uk; co-authored the Tuning document for Fine Art Higher Education in Europe; and been an active member of a European working group considering professional practice in the arts. She is currently working on a CLIP CETL funded research project in to the nature of placements and internships in Fine Art.

• http://www.dunhill-obrien.org
• http://www.collabarts.org
• http://paradox.wimbledon.ac.uk