COLUMBUS, GA.- "COMPETERE is a survey of Contemporary artist couples who are individually a vital part of the current New York art scene. This exhibition explores the concerns of artist couples while also comparing and contrasting the variety of artmaking approaches and choices related to gender, location, and context.
“The Latin word competere means to “strive together.” It is the root of the English word “competition.” Whereas “competition” suggests rivals, one faction determined to overcome the other – competere means two equals striving for the betterment of both. In America, we are unaccustomed to such self-effacing practices. We are dog-eat-dog, everyone out for themselves. Yet, Art, unlike sports, politics, technology or industry, is a more benevolent enterprise. Within the artistic community, artists work in the privacy of their studios, all the while, keeping an eye on what other artists are doing, often feeding off a shared synergy to inform their own work. Art is evolutionary, building upon itself and what came before. Competere is ubiquitous and instrumental in Art history.
Maine-based nature photographer, Peter Ralston once suggested that a perfect example of competere in marriage was in the relationship between husband and wife, Andrew and Betsy Wyeth. Andrew, an artist since childhood, and Betsy, an English major, were a classic power couple. He painted endlessly in a state of childlike myopia while she titled, cataloged and documented his artwork in her many archives, books and films, contextualizing his work for the world to understand. The formula served and fulfilled both parties. Andrew was generative while Betsy was structural. Even though only one was considered an “artist,” both received what they needed to feel fully alive while “striving together” toward a common goal with shared meaning.
However, two artists living together can be, as history has demonstrated, a more complex dynamic. We realize directly, or indirectly, that living with a creative partner can be challenging. Temperaments must be in simpatico in order to achieve an environment for creativity to flourish. The list of famous artist couples is long and the stories checkered – Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were famous for their struggles and victories as were Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Wright, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg — to name a few. Artists share both positive and negative qualities in their artistic temperaments: the childlike wonder that urges us to create also embodies the selfish baby who wants what it wants. The creative act can command one’s attention, leaving one’s significant other feeling left out – left wanting. It is a rare circumstance when two creative equals meet and form a union that allows both to live their wholehearted artistic selves unencumbered. A relationship in which each individual fully supports the creative life of their partner is sacred.
In this exhibition, Competere, each artist’s work is paired side by side with their partner’s work, allowing the viewer to compare and contrast the variety of approaches related to gender, location and context, often revealing a harmonious visual interplay. These artists, Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, Neo Rauch and Rosa Loy, Matvey Levenstein and Lisa Yuskavage, Steve Mumford and Inka Essenhigh, Sir Frank Bowling and Rachel Scott, Danny Ferrell and Devan Shimoyama, Isca Greenfield-Sanders and Sebastian Blanck, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, Jordan Sokol and Amaya Gurpide, Will St. John and Colleen Barry, Carrie Mae Weems and Jeffrey Hoone, and Wade Schuman and Kate Javens, are some of the most celebrated artists working today.
Carl Jung, in his essay, “Marriage as a Psychological Relationship,” posits, “Seldom or never does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises. There is no birth of consciousness without pain.” This can come as a sign of relief to couples who struggle in their relationship. Jung continues, “With the rise of continuous consciousness, and not before, psychological relationship becomes possible. So far as we know, consciousness is always ego consciousness. In order to be conscious of oneself, one must be able to distinguish oneself from others. Relationships can only take place when this distinction exists.” Individuation. Distinct egos working together for a common goal. Artist couples, for all of their foibles and stereotypical bickerings, may in fact present a way out of our larger shared conundrum. Competition is tribal and makes us choose sides. Competere, as a concept, can help us in our close relationships and in how we operate non- dualistically in the larger world. Competere allows us to reframe how we see self and other.
Jungian psychologist Polly Young-Eisendrath, the founder of Dialogue Therapy, suggests that the best a married couple can do is to “muddle through,” meaning there is no easy or predefined way to be in a relationship. Collectively and individually, all we can hope for is “to muddle through.” In Latin America, there is a word for the shared struggle, “La lucha.” There is no comparable word in English. “La lucha” has a positive connotation, overcoming hardship together, muddling through, surviving and coming out the other side.
Artists are pattern-seeking, meaning-seeking creatures, translating the transitory emotional realm through medium and presenting it to the world. Creating the work requires a deep dive into the emotional, subconscious abyss. As living-breathing artist couples, we may or may not be more adroit at problem-solving and conflict resolution than the next guy, but because artists, by design, are myth-making inventors, our shared meanings, roles and traditions can be unconventional by nature. Staying attuned to one’s inspirational source is essential for invention, and it is easy to see daily tasks and other’s needs as distractions. Marriage guru John Gottman advises, “Never stop being curious about your partner... never stop asking questions.” The challenge of a married artist is in keeping lines of communication open to their source and to the creative process all while staying as curious about our partner as we are within the studio.
Relationship is a caldron. It melts, melds and forges us. How we are and how we act, day to day, individually and collectively, determines what form we take after “muddling through.” Our ability to communicate in dialogue, privately and publicly, will determine our level of discourse and the depth of our relationships. University of Exeter Professor Jeremy Holmes MD has written, “We live in a world of deaf ears, isolated silos, and grotesque caricature. For Democracy to survive we need to find ways to listen deeply, see others’ points of view, respect differences, and generate creative dialogue.”
Joseph Campbell declared that “artists are the prophets.” This is wishful thinking. But, one thing artists learn from repeated attempts and failures in their studios, is patience, perseverance, and survival. These lessons are mutual and shared. We survive. We survive the creative impulse, the desire to make; we survive the childlike tantrum-throwing-adolescent-baby-artist, the isolation of the creative act; we survive the fear of sharing with our partner or others; we survive the criticism, the doubt, the lambasting, the ridicule; we survive being mislabeled and misunderstood; we survive the failures and the successes. We survive it all, coming through the caldron together, competing together, muddling together, striving together, rising together.
And as the culture of our nation and the world at large watches and waits, perhaps, competere is a signpost, a way home, a way out of our collective malaise.”
~ Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby
