Painting That Does Not Stay on the Canvas
Multidisciplinary painting borrows procedures from other fields. This creates marks a brush cannot make.
- Painting and performance. Yves Klein used human models as brushes in 1960. The event is the work.
- Painting and photography. Gerhard Richter began his photographic Atlas in 1962 as source material.
- Painting and instruction. Sol LeWitt used written instructions for wall drawings from 1968. The text is the work.
- Painting and architecture. Katharina Grosse began spraying paint over entire rooms in 1998.
Working Relationships
| Relation | Who decides | Whose name is on it |
|---|---|---|
| Assistance | Artist decides; assistant executes | Artist |
| Collaboration | Both decide together | Both |
| Commission | Artist decides within a client's brief | Artist, naming commissioner |
Clarify these roles early to prevent ethical disputes.
Managing Interfaces
Projects fail at the interfaces between different media and people.
For n people, there are n(n-1)/2 interfaces between them. A team of three has 3 pairs. Five people share 10 interfaces, while eight people create 28. Large teams require a dedicated coordinator.
Planning Arithmetic
Dependent tasks add together sequentially. Consider five tasks of 12, 5, 3, 8 and 2 days, totaling 30 days. Halving the 12-day task with extra help shortens the schedule by 6 days.
Calculate material coverage explicitly. A wall of 24 square metres needs 4 litres per coat. Two coats require 8 litres of paint.
Common pitfall: leaving documentation until the end. Ephemeral works survive only through recordings. Plan documentation at the start.