Artwork: LEIF PODHAJSKÝ: ALBUM COVER FOR INNERSPEAKER by Tame Impala (Modular Recordings). Digital collage, 2010
Perhaps there is nothing quite so human as re-imagining the world as we wish it to be, whether to illustrate our hope and dreams or our aggression and fears. The work of art is a bridge between emotion, idea, and action, allowing us to manifest a vision of the innermost workings of the heart, mind, and soul that we may share with the sighted world so that they, too, may behold that which cannot be spoken with words but must be said in every language at the same time.
Also: Secret Histories | Rediscovering “The Art of Alchemy”
The art of collage, a technique assembles different, disparate forms in order to create a new whole, dates back to the invention of paper in China around the second century B.C., reminding us that people have always possessed an innate desire to reshape reality to suit their desires. It found different forms over the years, but it wasn’t until 1912, when Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque introduced it to their oil paintings, that collage gripped the public imagination with limitless possibility.
DR.ME: 009 from ‘365 Days of Collage’ project. Handmade collage, 2014
Perhaps one of its greatest pleasures is the Do-It-Yourself technique that transgresses the strictures of fine art with its populist appeal. Anyone can do it regardless of training or experience. It simply requires the will to destroy and reinvent the two-dimensional world as you would like. For that reason, and many more, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl has described collage as, “The most consequential visual-art form of the twentieth century.”
In celebration, The Monacelli Press introduces Cut That Out: Collage in Contemporary Design, curated by Ryan Doyle and Mark Edwards who work together as studio DR.ME, a delicious compendium featuring works by 50 leading contemporary designers from 15 countries including Hort, Mike Perry, Stefan Sagmeister, Matthew Cooper, Mat Maitland, and Yokoland, among other, who have provided work for clients from Tame Impala to Stella McCartney.
ATELIER BINGO: BLUE FLORAL ABSTRACT for Wrap magazine. Handmade collage and screen print, 2014
Each chapter opens with a brief Q&A to provide readers with a sense of the artists’ ideas and approach to collage, offering insights into their influences, experiences, practices, and unexpected innovations. Artist Michael Holland observes, “I suppose collage is rubbish made beautiful. Historically, artists have tended to use materials that are in plentiful supply in their local area. I suppose I’m just following that tradition, using the mess that surrounds us in the 21st century in its plentiful supply.”
Indeed, the art of collage is upcycling in the most glorious way transforming the detritus of existence into forms that have something entirely new to say. Collage is gloriously subversive, rendering the original in a manner that either erases or inverts its meaning reminding us that there are few things as powerful as the human imagination. Collage offers little in the way of restriction, reminding us that freedom is not something you are given—it is something you take. Collage, like freedom, is acting on the world despite any real or perceived social restraint. And like freedom, collage is open to all people who wish to use it. The power is in our hands, if we choose it.
YOKOLAND: LEAP INTO THE VOID, personal project. Handmade collage, 2006
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
