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WORLD COLLAGE DAY | KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Patterns of Power
at Empty Set in Bronx, New York, USA through 19 March 2022. “Patterns of Power” recontextualizes patterns found in the decorative arts and addresses power structures, social and environmental issues. The desire to destroy the genteel trappings of modern life that underhandedly rewards greed, patriarchy and short-sightedness is articulated through deconstruction and maximalism. The artists on view are Elizabeth Castaldo (image here), Rachel Sydlowski, Elizabeth Alexander, and Sarah Morejohn. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS
Collage in the House
Deadline: Sunday, 10 April 2022. Collage-Lab.com announces an International Call for Collage Art for World Collage Day 2022. Collage-Lab.com and everydaypaper will choose collage artists from around the world to feature in the upcoming print publication called Collage in the House. Additionally, selected artists will be featured in an online art exhibit, coinciding with World Collage Day, 14 May 2022. There is no fee to enter, but artists may submit only one analog collage. MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
An Amalgam of Creative Techniques
Pincourt, Québec, Canada. Émilie Léger uses the base technique of Image transfer in many of her works. This technique represents what she describes as “controlled coincidence”. Controlled coincidence consists in obtaining a relatively predictable technical result that she can juxtapose with a variety of traditional techniques that will reveal a sought-after work of textures and contrasts. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Matisse: Life & Spirit
At the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia through 13 March 2022. This exhibition, exclusive to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, offers an extraordinary immersion in the range and depth of the art of Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Developed in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which holds an exceptional collection of works by the artist, “Matisse: Life & Spirit, Masterpieces from the Centre Pompidou, Paris” is the greatest single exhibition of Matisse masterworks ever to be seen in Sydney. Reaching from his early adventures in colour as a fauvist through to the serene and distilled designs for his chapel in Vence, the exhibition follows Matisse’s search across six decades. MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
The Process of Discovery
Houston, Texas, USA. Carlos Hernandez’s work reproduces familiar visual images, drawn or found, arranging or collaging them into new conceptually layered pieces. For Hernandez, the discipline of printmaking is the process of discovery, and says “I love how the process has a feeling of unpredictability. In creating my work, I am drawn to discarded and found graphics and like to incorporate hand-drawn elements, old ads and dirty patterns to add to my illustration and collage work.” MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Gift Re-gifted
Aimée Farnet Siegel at Spaulding Nix Fine Art in Atlanta, Georgia, USA through 18 March 2022. Aimée Farnet Siegel is a non-objective artist working in found, hand painted and manipulated paper. Non-objective art defines a type of abstract art that is usually, but not always, geometric and aims to convey a sense of simplicity and purity. Using paper as her medium and muse, Aimée is able to improvise and work with fluidity, welcoming chance into her process. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS
Marchollage
When Februllage ends, do you feel bereft, at a loose end? Marchollage was founded by Rachel Morris (@FiveByFiveCreativity) in 2020 for just this reason. She had only shared photography on Instagram until her parents died, 18 days apart, and Februllage became a lifeline. Collage proved to be a comfort, as well as a means of connection, Februllage a daily rope to cling to, so Marchollage became a necessity. It is hoped that, this year, Marchollage not only provides ongoing daily practice and connects artists to other artists, but is also a refuge from the worries of the world. The prompts for 2022 are being crowdsourced. MORE
Current Issue
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 34, we hope it leads you to asking great questions.
PRINT MAGAZINE
Kolaj 34
From Rockwall, Texas to Belarus to Dublin, Ireland, Kolaj 34 offers an international view of collage. In this issue we look at how the medium is being used to critique fashion advertising, build community, and investigate Black, Victorian spirituality. Writers wrestle with ideas about illusionary spaces, the psychology of the creative process, and concepts that expand our understanding of collage.
Each issue of Kolaj Magazine shows how collage artists are making their way through the world. International in scope, we explore all aspects of collage and its impact on society and culture. MORE
Recent Publications
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BOOK
Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream
A companion book to the project of the same name, Ric Kasini Kadour unpacks what monuments are and their role in our communities. He takes the reader on a tour from the Megalithic Temples of Malta to Brú na Bóinne in Ireland to the Confederate monuments of Obion County, Tennessee to the empty column in the center of Birr, County Offaly, Ireland. Kadour asks us to consider monuments as sites of collective memory and as places to reflect upon history, even when that history is false or misleading. He then shows us what happens when collage artists reimagine these spaces as sites of truth and reconciliation. The book features the collages of eighteen international artists made a series of collages that reimagined the empty column in the center of Birr, County Offaly, Ireland, which, from 1747 to 1915, commemorated the Duke of Cumberland's 1745 victory over the Scots at Culloden, as 21st century beacons of hope and reconciliation. MORE
COLLAGE BOOK
Tissue Box:
A Pandemic Response
Boite à mouchoir: Une réponse à la pandémie. In Spring 2020, as the world was going into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Quebec Collagiste Virginie Maltais felt a deep need for a point of reference. Her solution was a project that asked collage artists from around the world to make a collage using the top of a tissue box. "Small projects are important. You regain your courage and hope when you start and manage to finish something. There is no small project. We do big projects with lots of little steps. Step by step, we move forward. Together. And it is all of these small steps, together, that led to the creation of this book." Maltais worked with Kolaj Institute and Kasini House to produce a bilingual book about the project. MORE
COLLAGE BOOK
transitional MOMENTS
transitional MOMENTS: restoring equilibrium through the art of collage includes one hundred collages selected from over 2000 submissions created from 600 collage packets sent to artists around the world for World Collage Day 2021 by the Arizona Collage Collective. transitional MOMENTS "reflects our current state of uncertainty as we wrestle with feeling constrained, disoriented and suspended in air between what was and what will be. Yet, these thresholds, unsettling as they are, can be spaces of great creativity and transformation," writes ACC's Suzanne Winkel. MORE
NEW BOOK
Oh, Money! Money!
by Eleanor H. Porter
Kolaj Institute is pleased to announce the publication of Oh, Money! Money!by Eleanor H. Porter and illustrated by a collective of collage artists. In Porter’s 1918 novel, a Chicago multi-millionaire struggles to decide to whom he should leave his money. The book is a time capsule of early 20th century American life with a strong focus on the lives of women and observations about material culture and communities before the rampant consumerism of the 1920s and the Great Depression. To illustrate the book, Kolaj Institute organized a residency that brought together ten artists who worked collaboratively to make sixty-three collages that interpret Porter’s novel for a 21st century audience. 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 Deconstructions
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
BOOK
The Money $how: Cash, Labor, Capitalism & Collage
The Money $how juxtaposes contemporary artwork against fragments of history and literature as a way of showing how collage can help us deconstruct culture and understand the world differently. Artists collage dollar bills into flowers and mine material remnants to tell stories about home economics. MORE
SPECIAL EDITION
World Collage Day 2021
In honour of World Collage Day, May 8, 2021, Kolaj Magazine is releasing a special edition of the magazine. The Special Edition is full of Cut-Out Pages and stories from inspiring collage artists. MORE
Note: The World Collage Day Special Edition is not included in a regular Kolaj Magazine subscription.
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
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.
