MAGAZINE | INSTITUTE | CURRENT ISSUE | ARTIST DIRECTORY | SHOP
KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE | WORLD COLLAGE DAY
COLLAGE COMMUNITIES
Amsterdam Collage Collective
Noticing the lack of a central platform for the community of collage artists in The Netherlands to showcase their work and interact, Annelise Hewitt founded the Amsterdam Collage Collective in November 2020. The collective’s three main goals are to be a community of support and social resources for collage artists, to showcase collage made by artists in or from The Netherlands, and through bi-weekly prompts, spark creativity globally, by inspiring and cultivating collage and artistic communities locally. MORE
COLLAGE BOOKS
Collage Kit, Volume 1
by Free Period Press (2020). The Collage Kit is a new 120-page magazine of curated photographs, illustrations, and textures that are just begging to be cut up and reassembled into your very own collage masterpiece. On each sheet in the book, one side features artwork, while the other side is a solid color or simple texture. The book includes examples of finished collages for layout inspiration. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS
Social Justice Collage Workshop
Deadline: 13 March 2021. Collage artists with a passion for equal rights and equitable opportunities for all are invited to apply for Kolaj Institute’s Social Justice Collage Workshop, a four-week program designed to provide a foundation for the intersection of collage and social justice. The workshop, led by Elaine Tassy, is designed to explore the purpose, meaning, context, history and problems of social justice through collage making, discussion, examination of other artists’ work, and hearing from dynamic speakers who make and curate social justice collage. At the end of the workshop, the participants will be invited to have one of their collages included in the May 2021 exhibition at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice along with Elaine Tassy’s piece, Say Their Names. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS :: Artist Lab: Art Meets History in New Mexico
Information Session: Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 5-6PM MST:: DETAILS
Deadline: 28 February 2021 :: LEARN MORE
FROM KOLAJ 31
Age of Collage 3
In this manifestation, The Age of Collage Volume One and Two editor Dennis Busch has teamed up with London-based writer, curator, and editor Francesca Gavin, who wrote all of the text in 2020 during COVID lockdown. gestalten writes about the book, “In our present The Age of Collage 3, the simple act of mixing together different elements allows us to question our reality and make new worlds. The Age of Collage 3 showcases a new crop of artistic vanguards advancing the medium’s possibilities, piece-by-piece. Equipped with a craft knife, paintbrush, stylus, scissors, or tablet, a collage artist’s toolkit is as varied as their creations and this book brings their work back to the paper page.” MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Isolation & Belonging
Boca Raton, Florida, USA. Missy Pierce creates paintings, mosaics, assemblage and artist books that address the tension between isolation and belonging as she focuses on multicultural issues and the complicated sense of identity within each of us. She writes, "As a product of mixed heritage myself, my creative objective is to capture, contrast and combine the different traditions, designs, colors, and sounds that collide within us as we form our own identities." MORE
COLLAGE BOOKS
Americana Zine
by Susan Lerner (self-published, 2020). Sequestered away during COVID-19, Susan Lerner’s daily collage practice seemed mundane. She spent hours and hours cutting images from vintage magazines and books instead of creating her usual surreal stories. As life continued imploding, she decided to express her frustration and rage concerning her country’s lack of empathy and division during this crisis. Using vintage imagery in red, white, blue and black, and adding ink, colored pencil and acrylic paint, the political collage series, “Americana”, was born. This series brings together vintage imagery in the context of today’s issues. MORE
WORKSHOP REPORT
The Missing Parts
Ashley Pryor Geiger mines photography archives for material which she transforms using digital apps as a way of drawing out hidden dimensions and narratives. At Tulane University Special Collections, she found a trove of glass plate negatives by Joseph Woodson "Pops" Whitesell (1876-1958) that offered her a trove of material. Geiger "deconstructs and recomposes their identity, their fragmented souls," explains Curator Valentina Granello. "Through her digital collage practice, she tried to find an answer to give to these creatures, to connect and complete their missing part in a contemporary vision." MORE
In the coming weeks, Kolaj Magazine will share Reports from the Curating Collage Workshop that took place in Fall 2020 with the University of Vermont's Fleming Museum. MORE
KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE
How-To World Collage Day
Saturday, February 20, 2021, 2PM EST
In this online forum, we will hear from artists about their experience hosting World Collage Day events and activities in the past and what they are planning for 2021. Folks from Kolaj Magazine will offer a primer on creating your own event or activity. We will talk about how World Collage Day will unfold in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. And we will reveal the 2021 World Collage Day Poster Artist. Bring your ideas and questions! VISIT KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE FOR DETAILS
JOIN KOLAJ INSTITUTE
Members of the Silver Scissors & Golden Glue Societies support the work of Kolaj Institute while receiving an item from Kolaj each month. LEARN MORE
This month, Society Members are receiving a special Collage Postcard Pack. With many people still practicing social distancing, we hope these postcards let you stay in touch and spread the joy of collage.
Recent Publications
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 #31, we hope it leads you to asking great questions.
CURRENT ISSUE
Kolaj #31
If Kolaj #31 has an overarching theme, it would be about how artists are pulling from the past to speak to the now. We swim in a stream of ideas, some of which come at us so quick and hard that we rarely have a chance to consider where they come from…or where they are going. What ever happened to those stolen collages? Why do we think these things about some people but not others? Why can’t we name five scientists who are women? What is my place in the art world? How do I speak to my community? These are deep, critical questions that artists are trying to make sense of for themselves and for the people around them. It is exciting to tell their stories. Learning about them, what they did, how they work makes us better artists, writers, and, hopefully, better people. Collage is powerful magic. MORE
COLLAGE 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
COLLAGE COMMUNITIES
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.
