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FROM KOLAJ 30
Temporal Arts & Material Value
From Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Rhonda Barrett aims to create collages that speak to our consumer driven society and direct our attention back to simple pleasures. The waste-not-want-not attitude and nostalgia of her maritime upbringing is paramount in her choice of medium and also informs many of the images she captures. A portfolio of Barrett's work appears in Kolaj 30. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Vermont Utopias: Imagining the Future
at Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, USA through 28 December 2020. This exhibition features the work of 25 contemporary artists living and/or working in Vermont and the immediately surrounding region. The works on view are their response to the simple prompt: “What is your vision for the future of Vermont?” A majority of the artists in the exhibition are working in collage, as a medium or genre, in order to explore the themes of the exhibition. MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Internal Intent
New Cross, London, United Kingdom. Daniel Lehan creates large scale scenes using materials sourced from charity shops, secondhand bookshops and street markets. He wonders if the occurrence of “chance” while creating is actually a working out of some “internal” and unknown intent, which remains hidden, until the results of chance occur, and only then are made visible. Lehan views collage as a fine juggling act between an artist’s internal and external world. MORE
COLLAGE COMMUNITIES
Thessaloniki Collage Club
Greece. The Thessaloniki Collage Club was founded by Dorothee Mesander, a Dutch collage artist living and working in Greece in September 2018. The steady meeting place is Koumbi Cafe owned by Anthi Chrysopoulou, an experienced museum educator and collage enthusiast. They connected after an invitation in December 2017 by Koumbi to Dorothee to start a monthly collage workshop in the cafe’s creative space. MORE
*Featured in The International Directory of Collage Communities by Kolaj Institute. LEARN MORE
COLLAGE BOOKS
Jack Massey:
Light & Dark
By Todd Bartell (Thompson Gallery; 2016). The book catalogues the second exhibition in the “Light & Dark” series which presents a select group of drawings, collages, assemblages and a small-scale installation by Jack Massey. “Light & Dark” explores Massey’s interdisciplinary, poetically allusive and often whimsical work, which blends artistic genres, including minimalism, abstraction, trompe l’oeil, objet trové and conceptual art. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS
Parallel Dimensions
Deadline 17 January 2021. An Open Virtual Online Exhibition at Collage Artists of America. Open to work in "collage, mixed media collage, assemblage, and digital collage". The work will be juried by American printmaker John Greco, who is recognized for his contributions of creating a space for innovative thinkers at his studio, Josephine Press in Santa Monica, California. There will be cash awards for first, second and third places, as well as two honorary awards. MORE
FROM KOLAJ 30
Subverting Realities
In Kolaj 30, Yenny Hernández Valdés writes about the collage work of Cuban artist Ricardo Miguel Hernández: For several years, the artist conducted experiments on the variability of 'the real', starting with the finite object of a photograph of the 'other' (which Hernández purchased or negotiated access from the subject), which led in turn to the sublime, the irrational, and, simultaneously, the constructed truth, thus giving rise to the most diverse, strange and eccentric, perhaps, semiotic readings. MORE
Recent Publications
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NEW BOOK
Unfamiliar Vegetables: Variations in Collage
Unfamiliar Vegetables is a collection of collage where each of the fifty artists interpreted, in their own way, Carlotta Bonnecaze’s 1892 Carnival float design Familiar Vegetables. Project organizer Christopher Kurts observed, “Unfamiliar Vegetables is an experiment in controlled chaos….tiny variations within each artist’s creative sphere accumulate until the outcomes are as unique as the people creating them.” MORE
Unfamiliar Vegetables is sent automatically to members of the Silver Scissors & Golden Glue Societies and those who join before 31 December 2020. These special subscribers support the work of Kolaj Institute while receiving an item from Kolaj each month. JOIN TODAY!
(The Directory will ship to purchasers and members of the Golden Glue & Silver Scissors Societies the week of 9 December 2020.)
Our goal with every issue is that Kolaj Magazine is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of contemporary collage in art, culture, and society. We not only hope you enjoy the articles and images in Kolaj #30, we hope it takes you somewhere you never knew existed.
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CURRENT ISSUE
KOLAJ #30
From the island of Cuba to the tip of South America, to Norway and Denmark then back across the Atlantic to North America, Kolaj #30 is a journey through the hearts and minds of the collage community. These artists are responding to social upheaval, questioning the function of the photographic image, repurposing old billboards, encouraging children to engage with art, making new festivals, telling stories about their communities, reflecting on personal histories, imagining cities, and intervening on the urban landscape. MORE
BOOK
The International Directory of Collage Communities
The 104-page book is a survey of collage networks, guilds, communities, and projects as well as online efforts and groups focused on collage research. For each community, the directory presents their key activities, mission, how to join, and a bit of their history. Copious images illustrate the book. MORE
BOOK
Radical Reimaginings
The curators of the 96-page book invited artists who use collage in their practice to put forward a work of art that offers a visual narrative that speaks to the unprecedented change unfolding in 2020. An essay by Ric Kasini Kadour reflects upon collage's unique ability to imagine new realities. Forty artists from nine countries and multiple Indigenous peoples—Salish-Kootenai/Métis-Cree/Sho-Ban, Tlingit/Nisga’a, Oglala/Lakota, and Seneca Nation—offer a variety of perspectives. The voices of Black, Latinx, Native, and white Americans mingle with those from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Canada, France, and Germany. Artwork is accompanied by a statement in which the artists describe how they want to reimagine the world. MORE
BOOK
Collage Magic
by Emma Anna
Part autobiography, part fantasy, Emma Anna’s vision of The New Old World (aka The NOW) fuses vintage ephemera with modern imaging technologies. Emma shapes this strange world by using the pen tool from Adobe Photoshop as her magic wand, in the process declaring herself to be a “collage magician”. Part artist book, part document of art making, Collage Magic, from La Casa Verde Editions, is Emma Anna’s journey through magic and art. MORE
BOOK
Revolutionary Paths
When the collage is presented in exhibition, it is often done so without the critical framework granted other mediums. In "Revolutionary Paths: Critical Issues in Collage", exhibition curator Ric Kasini Kadour presents examples of collage that represent various aspects and takes on the medium. Each work in the exhibition represents the potential for deeper inquiry and further curatorial exploration of the medium. MORE
BOOK
Cultural Decontructions
Collage is unique as a medium in that it uses as its material artifacts from the world itself. To harvest those fragments, the artist must first deconstruct culture; they must select, cut, and remove the elements they do not wish to use and then reconstruct work that tells a new story. In "Cultural Deconstructions: Critical Issues in Collage", exhibition curator Ric Kasini Kadour presents examples of collage artists who are deconstructing identity as a way to critique culture. MORE
Our goal with every issue is that Kolaj Magazine is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of contemporary collage in art, culture, and society. Each issue of Kolaj Magazine is dedicated to reviewing and surveying contemporary collage with an international perspective. We are interested in collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century art movement.
