This month we share an illuminating podcast as part of our Arteculations series with the ITERARTE visionary collaboration The Sinistry. Bert Gilbert and Izzet Ers have independent practices but come together creatively in what they term a ‘syzygy’.

Syzygy. This intriguing term can be explained as a conjunction or opposition, specifically referring to the configuration in astronomy of the moon and the sun, also used in mathematics and biology, and in their case, the union of male and female energies. Carl Jung used it when talking of a union of opposites.

As the harvest moon appears brightly in our night skies in the northern hemisphere alongside the autumn equinox, we look out for a partial lunar eclipse, which is a celestial configuration of earth, sun and moon, a manifestation of syzygy. We consider pagan rituals such as mabon and other meetings of seemingly opposing forces, in creating something meaningful together.

Collaboration has always been at the heart of artistic practice and within every artistic community, from the Renaissance workshops of the great masters to the socially engaged art collectives gaining traction today. In 2021 the prestigious Turner Prize chose to shortlist five groups instead of individual artists. It was won by the Array Collective, a group of 11 Belfast-based artists. The Golden Lion at the 60th Venice Biennale 2024 was awarded to New Zealand’s Mataaho Collective of Māori artists, and ruangrupa based in Jakarta gained much critical reception for their curation of documenta fifteen in 2022.

Many of the greats did more than just get inspired by one another but produced work together, such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Michael Basquiat who from 1980-86 developed ‘the collaboration paintings’. Keith Haring described the partnership as “a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words”. As Bert Gilbert admitted in our podcast, being an artist can be lonely. With Warhol and Basquiat their signature styles are so well known it is easy to tell who painted which part – for other collaborations that is not important, such as the photography duo Bernd and Hilla Becher who admit they often forgot which of them took particular photos, their oeuvre sits as one.

They are not alone, there are many successful married or partnered couples who conceive and produce work together–take Christo and Jean-Claude, whose production has continued after both of their deaths with the artwork L’Arc de Triomphe Wrapped realised in 2021, 60 years after they devised the idea together. Emilia Kabakov continues to work after the death of her husband and long-term collaborator Ilya in 2023. Other partnerships have been more tempestuous, involving constant trials of faith in one another, such as Marina Abromovic and Ulay.

Siblings sometimes find artistic synergy together, but it does not always last–the London art world was shocked by the 2022 ‘break-up’ of the bad boy brothers of the YBA scene, Jake and Dinos Chapman. Bob and Roberta Smith are one contemporary artist, Patrick Brill, known for his slogan art, the pseudonym remains from a short-lived collaboration with his sister, Roberta.

Perhaps it is only identical twins that can find true syzygy – take the sisters Jane and Louise Wilson who produced identical bodies of work in their respective degree shows, from that point on always collaborating in their production of photographs and videos; or the identical Brazilian twins Octavio and Gustavo Pandolfo known as OSGEMEOS, who are major figures in the field of street art and graffiti.

The (former) Chapman brothers earned their stripes working with Gilbert and George, a truly iconic British duo, who declare themselves as two men who came together as one artist.

Some of the most dynamic work coming out of Lebanon in recent decades has been by filmmakers and artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, who met when they were young and have always lived and worked together, for them there is no separation between their life and their art. Both studied literature, and storytelling sits at the core of their research and documentary-based practice, which manifests itself in feature films, photography, and installations, always questioning the image and who views it. Central to their work is the daily reality of uncertainty and conflict in Beirut, their ongoing body of work Unconformities includes tapestries and vitrines which seek to capture the essence of human’s relationship with the earth and soil on which we live.

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme have collaborated since 2007, creating moving image works of tremendous power which incorporate elements sourced through long-term research, their own poetry and pulsating soundscapes, with intentional gaps and glitches. Their practice offers a portrait of the West Bank, they are both from Ramallah. In the face of ever re-occurring geo-political disasters across the territory, they focus on what can remain despite it all: collectivity, resilience, and memory.