MAGAZINE | INSTITUTE | CURRENT ISSUE | ARTIST DIRECTORY | SHOP
WORLD COLLAGE DAY | KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Rotationships
Augustine Kofie at Heron Arts in San Francisco, California, USA, 12 March-9 April 2022. "Rotationships" is Augustine Kofie stripped down to the essence of his practice. Created over three years, the series reflects the artist’s long-standing interest in salvaging forgotten remnants of the past and elevating them by repurposing them with a futuristic aesthetic. For years, the artist has obsessively collected, archived, and repurposed pressboard, a heavy, multi-ply paper stock used in packaging and office supplies from the 1950s to the 1980s. Previously, pressboard has appeared as the hidden architecture in Kofie’s collages, subsequently covered with layers of paint, ink, and spray. In "Rotationships", the only “paint” used is the colored pressboard itself; brushes only apply adhesive and varnish. Curated by Tova Lobatz. MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Potent Symmetry
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Sherman Fleming seeks to create projects that identify cultural and social mechanisms that resonate with his processes of performance, practice, and collaboration, combined with his experiences of community engagement. The continuity that threads his work together is the body and its relation to identity, community, and environment. In Fleming’s 2019 series “Thug”, the collages integrate figurative, graphic and textural elements in order to express an urgent and potent symmetry that simultaneously conjures qualities that evoke conflict, direction, aggression, and imposition. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Putting the Pieces Back Together
at the Bristol Art Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island, USA through 1 April 2022. “Putting the Pieces Back Together” is a juried exhibition of collages and constructions by 105 artists from twenty-two states. The works express the idea of putting life back together after the COVID-19 pandemic. University of Rhode Island Professor of Art Bob Dilworth served as juror. The organizers received over 430 submissions for the exhibition. MORE
COLLAGE COMMUNITIES
Virtual Collage Jam
Kal Honey hosts a bi-weekly, free, 1.5 hour collage session, live-streamed on YouTube. Sessions are recorded and can be watched after the fact. Each session has an optional prompt for members to respond to: the prompt can be a word or phrase, an image, an opportunity to respond in some way to another group’s call or image, etc.The original goal of VCJ was to give their artistic community a free, weekly event that could give them some social creative connection during the pandemic’s initial lockdowns. The evolving goal is to continue providing bi-weekly free events, open to all ages and abilities, to further their collage practices and to foster connections with the wider collage world. MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
A Narrative of Anger, of Protest
Hamburg, Germany. Iranian artist Fariba Rahnavard writes, "In the background of each work of art, there is a narrative, of war, of the event, and of the inner events of an artist that cannot be denied. A narrative of anger, of protest, and anything that frightens the artist. The image in the contemporary world is undergoing great changes, collage is a situation for me or it can be said that it is a very important event that in the space of modernist painting offers very new solutions and opportunities for the artist. Collage has been an exciting achievement for me: Play with all forms, photos as well as colors.” MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
A Suh Wi Dweet
Stuart Robertson at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA through 25 March 2022. "A Suh Wi Dweet” is a solo exhibition of over twenty mixed-media paintings by Stuart Robertson. The exhibition introduces a new body of work, developed between 2021 and 2022, that reflects on a decade of questions from a life lived between Jamaica, The United States and Europe. The work emphasizes Robertson’s practice evolving at the intersection of figurative and abstract painting today. This presentation at Second Street Gallery marks Robertson’s first professional solo exhibition, providing the community of Charlottesville and beyond with a look at new work from an emerging artist committed to representing his family, friends, and community with care. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Putting It Together
at The Lockwood Gallery in Kingston, New York, USA through 26 March 2022. “Putting It Together” explores the fine art of collage with work by twenty-one artists, including Loel Barr, Pamela Blum, Andrea Burgay, Galen Cheney, Susan Spencer Crowe, Josh Dorman, Judy Glasser, Barbara Gordon, Debbie Hesse, Marianne Van Lent, JoAnne Lobotsky, Dorothea Marcus, Stephen Niccolls, Ransome, Suzanne Rees, Susanna Ronner, Mark Rosenthal, Conny Goelz Schmitt, Ellen Jouret-Epstein and Carole Kunstadt. 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
ORDER A COPY
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.
