Artistic Bedfellows – Histories, Theories & Conversations in Collaborative Art Practices, edited by Holly Crawford: Although the modernist notion of art as autonomoushas been thoroughly contested, the discourse of the artist as celebrated individual persists. As a counter to that, this eclectic collection of writings on ‘collaboration as a cultural practice’ starts from the standpoint that collective approaches have been a characteristic feature of artistic production throughout the 20th century and that a rich cultural and artistic interchange results from shared experience and dialogue. Informed by contemporary notions of an emergent ‘relational’ sensibility and participative forms of social and cultural activity (such as the worldwide web) the editor, Holly Crawford, brings together a series of interviews, essays, conversations and remarks on collaboration.

International visual artists, critics, writers and musicians explore a range of histories, discourses and theories relating to communal, collective practices including FLUXUS, Zero, GRAV and SPUR in mid-20th century, women artists in the GDR and the Critical Art Ensemble in the Eighties and the experimental New Social Art School set up in Aberdeen in 2004. The resulting anthology, a considerable collaborative project in its own right, challenges orthodoxies and engages in the vital and current debate within the global artistic community about participative cooperative approaches.