Currently up:  “Exquisite Alliance: The Collaboration” co-curated by Jessica Goehner and Mara Metcalf

“Creative collaboration is not a new concept, it has existed and reformed through a great deal of history: quilting bees, old master paintings, all great architectural accomplishments, practically all inventions in some form, and the current wiki phenomenon.  The idea of creative collaboration is becoming more prevalent, artist groups form and work together for life, communities work on large scale projects together benefiting all, and there is an increase in the number of books and articles written on collaboration.  Keith Sawyer, author of the book Group Genius (2007)- a book specifically about collaboration and how to harness its potential, spends his time researching groups (with a group of people) and their dynamics in music, theater, enterprise, or art.   What Sawyer found is that group genius has many requirements, but once those are met the work created greatly exceeds any planned work in both creativity and productivity.  The requirements for group genius include similar skill sets, a clear idea of group goals, time, and the ability to hear one another and respond accordingly.

Exquisite Alliance initially was set to be a small show of exquisite corpses, but has branched into a show of many media, color, and individual backgrounds.   Most of the artists in Exquisite Alliance use collaboration in their work already, whether as a means of breaking a creative rut, as a means of interpersonal communication and idea appropriation, or simply to try their hand at joining techniques. The results are vibrant, experimental, and even innovative.

The Exquisite Alliance show was collaboratively curated by drawing/mixed media teacher and artist Mara Metcalf and student Jessica Goehner. ”

January 31- February 11     Project Space, SMFA     Boston

Upcoming:    “Context Authorship” Tisch College of Active Citizenship Show

Opens February 14th         Project Space, SMFA   Boston

 Upcoming:  The SMFA Student Annual  Juried Exhibition

Opens February 14th              SMFA              Boston

Photos of work, shows, and other things coming soon….