By Bruce Helander
There’s an old adage that proclaims artists need to work solo and in complete privacy in order to protect their dignity and unadulterated creativity. But that’s not always the case. While the “lone wolf,” introverted and often reclusive artist has been romanticized in many narratives, the creative pair also has earned its place in visual culture by working together for a common cause.
World history shows us that previous forms of drawing, painting and murals were almost always a mutual endeavor by talented, experienced individual artisans working together for a common cause. Documenting aspects of early civilization often took place in a secret protective cave, or conversely, were inscribed by a group of anonymous artists on the side of a mountain in the open air. The Egyptian pyramid builders conscripted a virtual army of artists to labor collectively at recording history. Strength in numbers guaranteed success.
Bunny's Watching II, 2024
As time marched on, artists working together as a modern group were able to free themselves from the realities of working on their own, and often the results were intriguing and remarkable. Joint ventures are the norm in most media, from film and theatre to music and television, where an innovative team is required to orchestrate a distinguished finished product.
Perhaps the most influential partnership association in modern art was the alliance of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who are both credited with originating collage. Putting their ingenious hands and minds together, they revolutionized the way we view imagery. This clever twosome began by eliminating standard guidelines for making paintings and instead offered a shockingly new interpretation of abstraction that matured into cubism. The two artists often would meet at the end of each day to compare notes and support each other’s revolutionary theories. Without their groundbreaking shared concepts, the history of art and its progressive depictions very likely would have remained the same for decades.
One of the most oft-noted artist collaborations was between pop artist Andy Warhol and graffiti prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat. From 1980 to 1986, they united for several stirring pieces, with one artist overlapping the other’s imagery to develop a new pictorial language that was a hybrid of symbols and novel ideas. Another celebrated combo of inventive activity were the narrative abstract expressionists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, who were great friends and lovers.
Black Cat, 2024
The word ‘Combine,’ widely used to describe Rauschenberg’s technique of including everyday objects into his abstract paintings, was attributed to Johns. Like Braque and Picasso, these two artists often discussed their experiments and accomplishments at the end of the day. So, even though each artist’s works were identifiably different from one another they still carried with them their own daring identity. The fact that there is a profound likeness in their art (like Braque and Picasso) imagery is reflective of the extensive influence they had on each other in the 1950s. Another friendship between Man Ray (the photographer) and Marcel Duchamp (the cross dresser as Rrose Sélavy, Duchamps’s alter ego) produced imagery together that became historic. Another example of this type of artist mix was the suggestion by LIFE photographer Gjon Mili that Picasso explore the possibilities of drawing an abstract figure in the air with a small electric light utilized as a brush on an invisible canvas while he photographed the process.
The meeting of the two iconoclasts, Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli and Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, in mid-1930s Paris is widely considered as the first ever art and fashion collaboration. This historic affiliation continues to influence designers such as Gucci and Valentino to embrace a working relationship with modern day designers and includes Yayoi Kusuma for Louis Vuitton. Ray Johnson, who made mail art, spent decades inviting art world personalities to “add to” his xeroxed drawings and send them off around the world as a traveling art exhibition.
Bunny Dream, 2024
The delightful reciprocal efforts of fellow artists in South Florida, national award-winning collage artist Janet Gold and critically acclaimed abstract painter J. Steven Manolis (see cover), have produced remarkably fresh compilations that incorporate the collage aesthetic of Gold and the constructivist compositions of Manolis. A novel merging of images and ideas by two obviously talented artists who dare to take a step outside their normal configurations to produce a balanced portion of each one’s hand at work, and then spin it and blend it into a new dimension that uses the imaginative strengths of both.
Artistic collaborations are not just based on mutual benefit but also trust and respect. Spouses Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning are good examples that the creative process is essentially a communal one. Before discovering their own semi-permanent style, all artists essentially cooperate and elaborate in their own way by assimilating examples, inspiration and insights from other artists.
Naughty Girl, 2024
Bonds among artists are important aspects of art movements, as was seen in the ‘70s and ‘80s in America and around the world. Numerous accounts of such friendships can be found in different biographies and autobiographies, and for several artists, like the Gold/Manolis “tag team,” the idea of working together but separately has produced a remarkable series now on view at Manolis Projects in Miami. The illustrative evidence of the Gold/Manolis association makes this a winning concept. Both artists recall noteworthy art movements crafted into one singular assembly that is clearly a breakthrough of images and ideas connected by two separate hands and mindsets. One uses scissors and the other a brush. One commemorates the early history of paper collage and the other emphasizes the breakthrough of Russian constructivism, with geometric forms that seem comfortable as dual overlays and symmetrical grids that weld the two styles together.
This innovative dynamic duo of a Gold/Manolis hybrid has cooperatively fashioned compositions from the bottom up, as if laying the interactive foundation for a surrealist building (see Dalí). It’s important to briefly examine the beginnings of a highly influential artistic movement that is certainly connected at the hip to the works shown here.
Puppy Butt, 2024
Constructivism, which was founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, was a radical departure from traditional still-lifes and encouraged cooperative creativity, which freed many artists from the realities of working alone. The movement initially was suppressed by the conservative Russian government in the 1920s, which was counterproductive for a novel movement that required freedom of verbal and artistic expression. Subsequently, members of this historic movement seeking independence had no choice but to expatriate to various parts of the world. Incidentally, in the 1930s Picasso was forced to vacate fascist Spain for Paris to avoid the same conservative backlash, which eventually jettisoned his world-famous reputation.
These pioneering undertakings also lead to suprematism, Russian avant-garde, De Stijl and futurism and set the stage for future modern art advancements and an openness to joint projects.
Puss and Bloomers, 2024
A unique chemistry of images and ideas from the mindsets of Janet Gold and Steven Manolis bring the viewer into a framed new world that is fresh and innovatively singular. Each independent work takes on a distinctive communicative flavor as on a vintage surrealist magazine cover aesthetic by means of ‘sell lines’ at the bottom with titles like “Bunny’s Watching,” “Frogmouth,” “Black Cat,” “Puss n’ Bloomers” and “Naughty Girl.” Janet Gold has decades of professional practice as a dedicated collage artist, paper collector, art educator and collector with her works illustrated in numerous books and magazines and reinforced by abundant gallery and museum exhibitions. These experiences have naturally polished a fresh professional style and exciting intrigue. Manolis has received international critical acclaim for his ability to expand on Hans Hofmann’s engaged geometrics. Having studied privately with Wolf Kahn, Manolis’ color palette is confident and inventive. The results in the series documented here seem like a comfortable artistic partnership opportunity to blend two uniquely separate disciplines together generating a delightful hybrid of pasted paper and paint (instead). The first step forward is the construction by Gold of a hand-cut, cubist-like inspired collage packed with disparate vintage paper fragments. Eventually the composition is embellished by Manolis with a mesmerizing painted overlay signature of concentric circles and target shapes, diagonal lines and pastel borders. The second and final steps require Manolis to add his own brand of geometric cryptograms including hand-painted washes. This formula inevitably fills out the overall arrangement accented by hard-edged, masculine, geometric symbols that are complemented with soft, feminine cut paper elements that consummate a delightful union in a marriage of visual opposites.