Ethical and aesthetical in collaborative and participative art practices: Lexicon Tanja Ostojic

Abstract

In this paper theoretical concepts and paradigms through which and within which the challenges, ambiguities, contradictions of the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary participative and collaborative artistic practices, are recognized and explained, will be analyzed on the example of the artist Tanja Ostojic's project named Leksikon Tanja Ostojic, started in 2011. Participatory or collaborative artworks are almost always realized through various nonartistic practices, likely on the boundary of political or social engagement, and often in the absence of standard artistic practices, media, materials, expressions, even without any visual character. These artworks are being generated and constructed by different situations in response to specific contexts. Their already conventional structure, beside artists, implies the involvement of the public sphere and its subjects, the establishment of a close relationship with the existing or newly established social group in a certain period. The method on which these modern participatory art practices rely on is certainly cooperation. The third key element of participative and collaborative practices is a social problem that becomes 'material' for work. Therefore, in this paper functions and meanings of artists and the community in colabrative and participative artistic practices will be considered, on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary art history, as well as on the basis of current debates within contemporary art studies.