Dynamic Duos: The Art of Working in Pairs

Artistic duos are iconic fixtures of the modern and contemporary art world. Coming together in temporary or long-term partnerships—as a result of romantic relationships, sibling ties, or friendships—they resist ideas of the singular genius and instead celebrate a sense of the collaborative and collective, often with the aim of effecting societal change or making a political statement.

Though artists working together in pairs are often considered a phenomenon of the 20th and 21st centuries, cocreation has for centuries been a defining feature of how art is made. This exhibition demonstrates how artists have long explored the possibilities of what it means to work together. The featured prints, photographs, and illustrated books from the Library’s wide-ranging collections demonstrate the varied approaches artists have taken over 400 years to produce works that are the expression of not one, but two creators.

This exhibition is organized by The New York Public Library and curated by Madeleine Viljoen, Curator of the Print Collection and the Spencer Collection.

Artists on View

The Library is delighted to be exhibiting work by the following artists in Dynamic Duos: The Art of Working in Pairs: Allora & Calzadilla (Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla), Bernd and Hilla Becher, Alighiero Fabrizio Boetti (Alighiero e Boetti), Comte de Caylus and Nicolas le Sueur, Jake and Dinos Chapman, DabsMyla, Edward Julius and Charles Maurice Detmold, Joannes and Lucas van Doetechum, Marcel Duchamp and Enrico Donati, Sarah Elawad and Nathan Ross Davis, DGPH (Martin Lowenstein and Diego Vaisberg), Eva & Adele, Franticham (Francis van Maele and Kim Hye Mee, known as Antic-Ham), Gilbert & George, Jenny Holzer and Virgil Abloh, Iguchi Kashu and Otani Son’yu, Katsukawa Shunshō and Kitao Shigemasa, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Lapiztola (Rosario Martinez and Roberto Vega), LigoranoReese (Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese), Jean-Étienne Liotard and Giuseppe Camerata II, Basim Magdy and Marianne Rinderknecht, McDermott & McGough (David McDermott and Peter McGough), Barry McGee and Todd James, Joan Miró and Stanley William Hayter, Hans Namuth, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Ryan and Trevor Oakes, Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara, Ringl + Pit (Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach), Katia Santibañez and James Siena, Kurt Schwitters and Theo van Doesburg, Jean Pascal Sébah and Policarpe Joaillier, Hercules Segers and Rembrandt van Rijn, Henry Holmes Smith and Nathan Lerner, Nancy Spero and Leon Golub, Doug and Mike Starn, Georgiĭ and Vladimir Stenberg, TARWUK (Ivana Vukšić and Bruno Pogačnik Tremow), Thukral & Tagra (Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra), Gert and Uwe Tobias, and Zebu (Lynn Lehmann and Dennis Gärtner).

Also currently on view at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Visit Robert Motherwell: At Home and in the Studio in Wachenheim Gallery (First Floor) and A Century of The New Yorker (Rayner Special Collections Wing and Print Gallery, Third Floor).

Established in 1987 thanks to a gift from the Wallach family, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs unites what had formerly been five separate departments under a single banner. Divisional holdings comprise works of art, pictures, ephemera, as well as reference materials on painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, and the history of architecture from prehistoric times to the present. The Wallach Division also serves as the access point to the Spencer Collection of fine bindings and illustrated books and the Picture Collection, founded in 1915, which is organized by subjects depicted. Together, these collections include more than two million works of items in various mediums and formats, complemented by nearly 700,000 monographs and periodicals. The quality, depth, and scope of these holdings have earned the Wallach Division an international reputation among a broad variety of scholars and lovers of art.

Access the exhibition's large print labels.

Dynamic Duos: The Art of Working in Pairs

Large-type labels are also available at the information desk in Astor Hall on the first floor of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

I am very grateful to Brent Reidy, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries, and Franses Rodriguez, Deputy Director of the Research Libraries, for their support of the exhibition. I cannot thank my colleagues in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs enough not only for helping me realize the exhibition but also—in keeping with the topic of the exhibition—for being such wonderful and supportive collaborators, especially Clare Bell, Deirdre Donohue, Elizabeth Cronin, Maggie Mustard, Vincenzo Rutigliano, Margaret Glover, Alvaro Lazo, Rebecca Szantyr, Theodore Walther, David Lowe, Zulay Chang, and Sergio Morales. In Exhibitions, I am deeply grateful to Becky Laughner, Sara Spink, Amanda Raquel Dorval, Carl Auge, Natalie Ortiz, Ryan Douglass, Jake Hamill, Jermaine Neal, Christopher Alzapiedi, Henry Ballate, Paeton Horsch who made the difficult work of mounting every aspect of the show look both elegant and effortless. I thank Emily Muller, Alex Bero, Addison Yu, Mary Oey, and Emma Guerard in Conservation, who not only made sure the works were appropriately conserved but also implemented thoughtful and innovative methods to display them. In Digital Imaging Services, I thank Rebecca Wack, Steven Crossot, Doran Walot, Jeanie Pai, Emily Hoffman, Pete Riesett, Marietta Davis, Jenny Jordan, Gratten Perea, and Rebecca Baldwin for capturing works that were often challenging to shoot on a compressed schedule. I am likewise grateful to Kiowa Hammons, Zoe Waldron, Dina Selfridge, and Molly O’Brien for coordinating the rights to the works and for making them available on Digital Collections. I extend my thanks to Deborah Straussman, Caryn Gedell and Martin Branch-Shaw in the Registrar’s Office for managing the seamless movement of works in the show. My sincere thanks go to Charles Arrowsmith, Laurie Beckoff, Sandee Roston, Lizzie Tribone, Connor Goodwin, Maya Sariahmed, Katharina Seifert, and Rosalene Labrado-Perillo for their role in all aspects of promoting and publicizing the show and Fay Rosenfeld, Aidan Flax-Clark, and Margie Cook for helping to realize programming around the event in the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities. I thank Doug Clouse and Angela Voulangas from The Graphics Office, and Sam Morse and Taylor Niwa from South Side Design & Building for developing a beautiful and inventive design; and Mim Harrison for editing and correcting exhibition label copy. Finally, I thank Colin Bailey, John Marciari and Sarah Mallory at the Morgan Library and Museum as well as Carolina Nitsch for their generous loans to the exhibition.