Parlour tricks: four artists’ exquisite take on the surrealist game cadavre exquis

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Installation view of ‘Exquisite Trust (Blindly Collective Collaborations)
Installation view of ‘Exquisite Trust (Blindly Collective Collaborations)’, by Carsten Höller, Tobias Rehberger, Anri Sala and Rirkrit Tiravanija, on view at STPI.
(Image credit: Courtesy of the artists/STPI)

Anyone who has ever played cadavre exquis (or, exquisite corpse), the surrealist’s game in which one participant draws a head, covers the page, and another participant draws the body, covers the page, and so on, will realise just how surprising the resulting image can be. Imagine then what happens when four professional artists team up for a thoroughly adult version of the game.

Kudos to Emi Eu, the charismatic longstanding director of printer and papermaker, the creative workshop & gallery STPI, for her imaginative chops in persuading Rirkrit Tiravanija to cajole his friends Carsten Höller, Tobias Rehberger, and Anri Sala to help celebrate the institute’s 15th anniversary.

For both the artists and the STPI, the creative process – described as ‘a blind collaboration fuelled by pure instinct and spontaneity’ – presented unexpected challenges. Since no one knew what the other was doing and could not exert any influence on the entire piece, each was forced to abandon their usual creative control at the same time as they were liberated to bring to bear the full force of their own style and intent on their portion of the piece.

‘We were dealing with four very different artistic mentalities simultaneously, which amounts to four times the amount of experimentation and research,’ says STPI’s chief printer Eitaro Ogawa. ‘This stretched us mentally beyond the usual collaborations.’

For Tiravanja, the creative process has, by the very nature of its premise, focused on the body and the ‘different possibilities of playing with the processes of printmaking and image-making’.

In all, there are four major original collective works, alongside four to 12 individual works by each artist – a Warholian chimpanzee and typographical screen print here, and watercolour mono print, fuelled print on silkscreen, composite palm line drawing there. The pieces are, as Eu points out, free from calculated reasoning, each ‘uniquely whimsical and unabashedly nonconformist’.

Eu may well be championing our new favourite parlour game.

sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the drawing,

The artists have collaborated on a contemporary take on the surrealist game cadavre exquis, in which players draw in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the drawing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

Jitterbugs Tangofly Tagplants, 2016

Jitterbugs Tangofly Tagplants, 2016, by Carsten Höller, Tobias Rehberger, Anri Sala and Rirkrit Tiravanija

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

Monkey painting

Detail of (dreams that money cannot buy), by Carsten Höller, Tobias Rehberger, Anri Sala and Rirkrit Tiravanija

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

Transgender Question Seafood Vaporiser

Transgender Question Seafood Vaporiser (pictured left), and (dreams that money cannot buy)

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

Detail of Transgender Question Seafood Vaporiser

Detail of Transgender Question Seafood Vaporiser, by Carsten Höller, Tobias Rehberger, Anri Sala and Rirkrit Tiravanija

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

Parlour tricks: four artists’ exquisite take on the surrealist game cadavre exquis

There are four major original collective works, alongside four to 12 individual works by each artist

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

Detail of (dreams that money cannot buy)

Detail of (dreams that money cannot buy), by Carsten Höller, Tobias Rehberger, Anri Sala and Rirkrit Tiravanija

(Image credit: courtesy the artists/STPI)

INFORMATION

‘Exquisite Trust (Blindly Collective Collaborations)’ runs until 22 April. For more information, visit the STPI website

Photography courtesy the artists/STPI

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Daven Wu

Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.