.X > 1 - Hoping for Success, Celebrating Failure!

X > 1 is conceived as an exhibition of collaborative work made by members of the Auckland Studio Potters community. At least one member of the collaborator team must be an ASP member.

Collaborations are inherently experimental as two or more brains impose their will on the same object. Each collaboration is different and the resultant work is the product of the process itself which can either be utterly chaotic and serendipitous or a planned and regimented division of labour. Either way, an element of surprise is inevitable as multiple minds come together. This coming together can be a soft melding of forms as of two soap bubbles bouncing off one another and then gently coalescing or a violent collision of skulls that leaves nothing but annihilation and concussion in it’s wake. Between these two poles are the rubbing together of balloon and hair to create the unseen magic of static electricity as well as the simple successes of like minded vessels doing something ‘nice’ together.

The important thing about the collaboration is not always the thing made but the process of engaging with other minds and the tiny cracks that let the chaos in. In pursuit of making this aspect apparent, X > 1 collaborators will be encouraged to document their processes with words and images which will be made available to viewers of the exhibition. Collaborators will also be encouraged to give consent for all work, including the unsuccessful works and ‘failures’, to be exhibited alongside their process documentation. These collaborations can also take ceramicists out of the ceramics studio where they can collaborate with chefs or arborists; arsonists or belly dancers - anything goes.

In order to make potential artist/potters aware of and inspired by the spirit of X > 1 outlined above, I will host some evening talks at ASP and at Depot Artspace during which these ideas and processes will be discussed and workshopped including the collaborative processes of other artists like Picasso and Man Ray, Warhol and Basquiat and others. We will also look at collaborative processes such as the surrealist Exquisite Corpse and how that process might be worked into a ceramic project.

So the exhibition will include all forms of pottery as well as more contemporary iterations of ceramic sculpture and experimental works. Part of my job as curator will be to encourage participating makers to allow the collaborative process to become as much a part of the show as the objects themselves.

Participating artists will be drawn from the pool of ASP members but is not confined to the member pool. ASP potters and ceramicists can collaborate with anyone outside of ASP and these collaborators need not be ceramicists at all. Participating artists can include sculptors, painters, dancers, poets etc and really depends on the contacts, friends and acquaintances of the members. I will hold a few open, introductory talks at ASP (with cheese and wine) at which ideas for collaboration can be workshopped and discussed. The aim of these talks will be to inspire potential collaborators and generate energy and excitement for the show and the process. I will also invite artists and non ceramic makers that I have met here in Aotearoa to these talks in order to push the inter disciplinary nature of collaboration.

Richard Penn