Bartalos

I’m pleased to be included in the book Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage, published recently by Gestalten. The volume was edited by artist James Gallagher who curated the ‘Cutters’ series of exhibitions in New York, Berlin, and Cork, Ireland over the past three years.

The full-color hardback book features works from more than 75 international artists, over half of whom participated in the recent Cork show. The contributors are represented by multiple examples of their work for a stylistically and technically diverse collection ranging from manual assemblage to computer montage.

The introductory essay by curator Dr. Silke Krohn puts the current practice of collage into an art-historical context while many of the works themselves (including mine) allude to Surreal-ism, Dada and Constructivism. These references add a pleasant whiff of nostalgia to the book but more importantly, they’re shown to be the means by which artists re-examine the collage tradition in order to find departure points for fresh innovation.

In this way, the book reveals modern collage to be as much an appropriation of concept and intent as it is of material. Or rather, a re-invention of concept and intent, given the impres-sively original results.

My interior spread in Cutting Edges.

This 224-page compendium reminded me of why I love collage: It offers creative flexibility, spontaneity, unpredictability and possibility like no other medium. The process is unique, liberating and expressive. It functions across multiple disciplines and perennially evolves as it feeds on old and new sources alike.

I was excited to read a review of Cutting Edges on the Design Observer OBlog by graphic designer Jessica Helfand, the Yale art lecturer and author of Scrapbooks: An American History. Her post’s insights about collage as art form and about Cutting Edges concludes with the statement: “This book is a knock-out.” I concur.