The Groove Issue 97 - Expand Your Ideas Through Combinatorial Creativity
EXPAND YOUR IDEAS THROUGH COMBINATORIAL CREATIVITY
Absolutely everything has been done already. Everything. That’s why one of the best definitions of creativity is the one that allows for originality when combining old information to create something new.
Some researchers call this part of creativity “combinatorial thinking,” which is the merging of two or more concepts into one idea, often simultaneously, but could also be during the sequential application of existing ideas that ultimately create a new system.
The beauty of this is that there are millions of combinations and recombinations of existing things that haven’t been done yet and can be turned into your own art, products or services.
How Marisol Turned Old Things Into Her New Iconic Trademark
Marisol photographed by Jack Mitchell in her studio in New York in 1969.
Maria Sol Escobar (later known in art circles as Marisol) had an eclectic upbringing, which is reflected in her work. She was born in Paris to Venezuelan parents, studied in New York and Los Angeles, then went back to Paris again, eventually returning to Manhattan in the early 1950s and later becoming one of Andy Warhol’s best friends in the 1960s.
She was a phenomenal artist, known mostly for her hard-to-replicate sculptures: she combined found objects along with painting, drawing, and photos glued on to wood blocks, merging pre-Columbian and Latin American influences that created multi-layered works of art. This combinatorial approach to artmaking is what made Marisol relevant, then and now.
Marisol, whose best work was produced in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, still stands out as a true original.
Marisol’s “The Party”, 1965-66, fifteen freestanding, life-size figures and three wall panels, with painted and carved wood, mirrors, plastic, television set, clothes, shoes, glasses, and other accessories, variable dimensions at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Not One Thing Or Another
While not the first to use assemblage and found materials (she was deeply inspired by Picasso and Robert Rauschenberg who also played with this style), Marisol’s sculptures look like no one else’s.
She was so much her own thing that art historians and critics still have a hard time categorizing her style: is she Pop? Dada? Post-surrealist? Feminist? Folk? None of that and all of them, because she didn’t fit cleanly into any of these boxes, and that’s what makes her work so compelling.
She wasn't into boxing herself in definitions either: “Call me pop, call me op, I don’t care — as long as I get into the show,” she said.
Her subject matters were about people and current events around her: politicians, artists, herself, in some cases her own family and in some others generic families; satirizing conventionalisms, poking fun at royalty, playing with the masculinity of wood and the femininity of cast. (As shown when she added her own face or hands to her sculptures).
Marisol standing next to her installation “The Royal Family” at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York in 1967.
She arrived at her style “as a kind of rebellion. Everything was so serious… I was very sad myself and the people I met were so depressing. I started doing something funny so that I would become happier - and it worked”.
Even though the media has insisted on portraying Marisol as an underdog (any post-war artist when compared to Warhol’s fame and extraordinary career is an underdog), she gained rightful recognition while alive.
In 1968, she represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale and her work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, The Met and The Whitney in New York. Critics praised her for her “wit and imagination”.
She had sold out solo shows with Leo Castelli and Stable Gallery, and also held retrospectives in institutions like the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio in New York before she died in 2016 at the age of 86.
After all these years, she continues headlining exhibitions, like the recent “Marisol and Warhol Take New York”, which originated at The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and it’s currently on view at the Perez Art Museum in Miami.
Combinatorial Thinking In Business
What is not the iPhone but the product of combinatorial thinking? This is Steve Jobs' own assemblage of old bits and pieces that already existed: an MP3 player, a phone, 14 apps, an internet browser, a simple camera.
“Creativity is just connecting things,” Jobs famously once said. Thanks to the iPhone, 13 years after its launch, Apple would become the first trillion-dollar company in history.
Fixing multiple problems in an efficient (combinatorial) way gave birth to products like the alarm clock, the Polar watch and the washer and dryer, for example.
In his book, “How Google Works”, former CEO Eric Schmidt wrote that “we are entering … a new period of combinatorial innovation.” This happens when “there is a great availability of different component parts that can be combined or recombined to create new inventions.”
While there’s no real foolproof formula for combining things or parts that may at first seem outlandish or complex, observation, experimentation, flexibility, curiosity, and a desire to create something of value will definitely get you started on the path towards combinatorial creativity.
UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS
I’ve put together a free webinar for those of you who are not members of my online course, Jumpstart.
If you’d like to watch it, please register here (it’s on auto-repeat every 15 minutes once you have registered).
NEW PODCAST INTERVIEW
I was a guest of Michael Shaw, LA artist and host of The Conversation Art Podcast, and we covered a lot of ground including the current state of the art market, debunking the myth of the starving artist, and more. Listen here.
HOW CREATIVITY RULES THE WORLD
I am super thrilled that my book won the International Book Award in the Business/Entrepreneurship category!
Have you already gotten your copy?
It’s in three formats: hardcover, eBook and audiobook. Get it here.
ALSO! For the month of July, you can get my audiobook for free (PLUS 2 other books!) on Audible if you sign up as a new member. Click here to learn more.
TEDX TALK
Have you already watched my TEDx Talk: “NFTs, Graffiti and Sedition: How Artists Invent The Future”?
I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.