Mary Paterson – författare

Joshua Sofaer works across boundaries, borders and disciplines to create artworks that engage with all levels of society. In cultural institutions or on the street, for art galleries or personal homes, staged as operas or cast as golden sculptures, Sofaer’s work weaves with and through social fabric to consider the ideas that hold us together. Co-published with the Live Art Development Agency, this lavishly illustrated volume is the first in-depth study of the artist’s work, featuring discussions with producers and participants, documentary images and a new photographic essay, interviews with the artist himself, and thirteen commissioned essays by scholars, curators and artists from the perspectives of performance studies, archaeology and opera criticism. With a mixture of intellect, humour and striking design, Joshua Sofaer: Performance | Objects | Participation analyses the artist’s oeuvre in the contexts of liveness, visual art and participatory practices. It explores the binding aesthetics of his approach as a model for contemporary practice, and it considers the impact of his work on audiences, institutions and pedagogy, as well as on fine art and performance ecologies as a whole.

Drawing out the particularities of working in twos, with a focus on collaborative performance making, this book considers the duet as a particular configuration in which to think, the duo a microcosm of humankind, and presents everyday entanglement of form and practice seen through the lens of the smallest multiple unit.

This book explores the practical, philosophical and aesthetic implications of performers working in pairs. It focuses on a ten-year period in the work of Karen Christopher, alongside wider reflections on the duet as a concept in artistic and social life. The book presents an investigation of the entanglement of form and practice seen through the lens of the smallest multiple unit of collaboration: the pair.

During this ten-year period, Christopher set out to create a series of duets by working with one other artist. The 25 pieces in the collection includes reflections from an international group of collaborators, artists, linguists, physicists, theologians, philosophers and performance scholars. Many of them deal with the question of artistic collaboration and entanglement, contemplating the significance of those terms both on an interpersonal and global level.

This book provides a fascinating insight into the creative working process of a particular artist, whilst providing a blueprint for how collaboration might take place. There are many passages that might provide inspiration for other artists and overall the book makes a moving and heartfelt plea for interpersonal open-ness and mutual investment. 

Primary readership will be among international theatre-makers, artists, performance and art scholars, philosophers, teachers, directors, actors, dancers, performance artists and those interested in creative and personal writing about performance, art and art-making. It will be of particular relevance to those with an interest in Karen Christopher, or in the other contributors.