Artistic Collaboration and the Completion of Works of Art

Abstract

We present an analysis of work completion couched in terms of an effective completion decision identified by its characteristic contents and functions. In our proposal, the artist's completion decision can take a number of distinct forms, including a procedural variety referred to as an 'extended completion decision'. In the second part of this essay, we address ourselves to the question of whether collaborative art-making projects stand as counterexamples to the proposed analysis of work completion.

Authorship, Co-Authorship, and Multiple Authorship

“…12 Writing with Carol Archer, Livingston states, "Our proposal is that the making of the effective completion decision in one of its forms is a necessary condition on authorship." 13 Here, by "completion decision," Livingston refers to the judgment by the author that the artwork in question is complete and that no further contributions by the author are necessary. 14 Since Crichton, we can assume, never made any such judgment or decision with regard to Micro, he would apparently not qualify as an author of the work.…”

Psychologism and Completeness in the Arts

“…There remain active disputes over the details of this approach. Some, including Paisley Livingston (), Carol Archer (Livingston and Archer ), and K. E. Gover (), say that a work is finished when its author efficaciously judges it to be complete and so refrains from further intervention. Others, including Kelly Trogden and a later Livingston (, ), say that such an occurrent judgment is dispensable and that an author need only possess the right kind of disposition to refrain.…”

Ambivalent Agency: A Response to Trogdon and Livingston on Artwork Completion

“…In a recent article in this journal, Paisley Livingston and Kelly Trogdon offer a condition that is both necessary and sufficient for artwork completion: a work is finished or complete “just in case the artist has acquired a completion disposition with respect to her work—a disposition to refrain from making significant changes to the work that is grounded in certain cognitive mechanisms” (Trogdon and Livingston , 225). This is the latest iteration of Livingston's theory of artwork completion that he has developed over the past decade in several publications (Livingston , , ; Livingston and Archer ). When we compare this most recent contribution to his other statements on the topic, we find that prior talk of completion decisions or judgments by the artist is now replaced with the language of an artist's completion disposition toward the work…”

“…Due to this circularity, they have not given reason to adopt their account rather than an equally “natural” alternative. Livingston's earlier theory of work completion that roots it in the artist's “effective, practical decisions” is a superior account because it says much the same thing without appealing to the vague concept of disposition and its circular logic (Livingston and Archer , 444).…”

“…Compare with Livingston's earlier view: “An artist's more or less deliberate decision to stop working on a piece is not enough to grant that piece the status ofa finished work. Instead, the artist must, for whatever reason, effectively judge or decide that what he or she has done is a finished work ” (Livingston and Archer , 443).…”