I always thought collage was the stuff of middle school art classes and ambitious scrap-booking projects - a fun way to pass a lonely afternoon, a valid excuse to purchase large pots of glue and Crayola markers well into adulthood - but nothing that anyone would ever really take too seriously. And I always thought that was a shame, because I can make a mean collage. After visiting Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris, the latest blockbuster exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, however, I realized there may be hope for a starving collage-ist like me yet. This show totally challenged, as in, blew to smithereens - all my earlier ideas about the medium.
In these seemingly chaotic, yet in fact impeccably arranged, works of art (by Picasso as well as his contemporaries Georges Braque and Juan Gris), fruit and wineglasses mingle with violins and newspaper clippings of the day - testament of a world on the brink of and in the midst of war. Not only that, this was a time when everything was becoming more and more industrialized. It's highly possible that as these works were being created, nothing seemed certain and nothing felt real. When you think of it that way, it's all quite moving. Then, as now: collage is a means of expression, identification, catharsis, and preservation.
The collages on view feature objects cut and thoughtfully pasted as well as drawn by hand, a juxtaposition that plays with ideas of dimension as well as illusion and reality. Torn strips of paper and images of everyday objects come together to create bold geometry and subtle shadows. It begs the question: What is really worth remembering? When we are torn to shreds, how can we piece ourselves together into a more meaningful whole?
Photo (top): Still Life: The Table, Juan Gris, 1914; photo (bottom): Musical Forms, Georges Braque, 1918. All courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
