The Art of Making Friends
Ron Song and Frank Olive have been making art in tandem since they met while doing graduate work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Their various, idiosyncratic projects have ranged from their two-part thesis show, when they pitched an air-conditioned, furnished visitors tent in the notoriously sweltering SAIC thesis galleries and provided audio guides and maps to those who wanted to tour the exhibition, to Exhibition Space: The Arcades Project, when they rented a booth at the Borkholder Dutch Village arts-and-crafts mall, in Nappannee, Indiana, and hung it with an ever-changing group show of art that referenced craft.
"From the very beginning we were both interested in asking questions about audience and the context in which art is experienced," explains Olive. "We also both want to be friendly to our audience and collaborate with them and confuse who is the audience and who is the artist."
With The Arcades Project, "we wanted to learn about contextual value from the audience at Nappannee." What would a Sunday shopper out to buy painted wood ducks and crocheted armchair cozies think about Lisa Norton’s empty-bleach-bottle-cum-piggybank? Not much, as it turned out: one man was impressed with the craftsmanship of Ronnie Wright’s photographs but disinterested in his subject matter of used cars; another thought Jessica Bader’s box of porcelain packing popcorn was clever, but wondered what she could possibly do with it. Relocating artworks normally received in a gallery setting to an environment where objects are judged according to a set of values based on functionality, craftsmanship, and cost led to an inevitable revaluation (and devaluation) of the exhibited art, but this was integral to the project’s conceptual framework and completely dependent on the audience of passers-by. It also gave Song and Olive a chance to talk to people they wouldn’t otherwise have met.
In fact, working as a pair has been an intense, localized version of just that. In no particular order, Song and Olive met, found adjacent studio spaces, shared an apartment, and dated two women who were also roommates. They are each other’s audience. "We become a bit more bold as a collaboration," says Song. "We are not afraid to do things. Rejection is bad, but odd situations seem to be handled better just by having someone else look." And, adds Olive, "collaboration is a step away from being able to point directly to who is responsible for what idea or activity." Less an eschewing of accountability than a willingness to share and cooperate, their philosophy opens up the creative process to participation from unexpected parties of all sorts.
Ron Song and Frank Olive have been making art in tandem since they met while doing graduate work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Their various, idiosyncratic projects have ranged from their two-part thesis show, when they pitched an air-conditioned, furnished visitors tent in the notoriously sweltering SAIC thesis galleries and provided audio guides and maps to those who wanted to tour the exhibition, to Exhibition Space: The Arcades Project, when they rented a booth at the Borkholder Dutch Village arts-and-crafts mall, in Nappannee, Indiana, and hung it with an ever-changing group show of art that referenced craft. "From the very beginning we were both interested in asking questions about audience and the context in which art is experienced," explains Olive. "We also both want to be friendly to our audience and collaborate with them and confuse who is the audience and who is the artist."
With The Arcades Project, "we wanted to learn about contextual value from the audience at Nappannee." What would a Sunday shopper out to buy painted wood ducks and crocheted armchair cozies think about Lisa Norton’s empty-bleach-bottle-cum-piggybank? Not much, as it turned out: one man was impressed with the craftsmanship of Ronnie Wright’s photographs but disinterested in his subject matter of used cars; another thought Jessica Bader’s box of porcelain packing popcorn was clever, but wondered what she could possibly do with it. Relocating artworks normally received in a gallery setting to an environment where objects are judged according to a set of values based on functionality, craftsmanship, and cost led to an inevitable revaluation (and devaluation) of the exhibited art, but this was integral to the project’s conceptual framework and completely dependent on the audience of passers-by. It also gave Song and Olive a chance to talk to people they wouldn’t otherwise have met.
In fact, working as a pair has been an intense, localized version of just that. In no particular order, Song and Olive met, found adjacent studio spaces, shared an apartment, and dated two women who were also roommates. They are each other’s audience. "We become a bit more bold as a collaboration," says Song. "We are not afraid to do things. Rejection is bad, but odd situations seem to be handled better just by having someone else look." And, adds Olive, "collaboration is a step away from being able to point directly to who is responsible for what idea or activity." Less an eschewing of accountability than a willingness to share and cooperate, their philosophy opens up the creative process to participation from unexpected parties of all sorts.
