By Benoit Depelteau
Why collage? Why is it relevant today? So many things come to my mind.
First of all, I could say that collage played a significant role at the beginning of modern art when Picasso and Braque started to assemble what they found in their studio on a cardboard. They would meet almost every night to talk about their discoveries.
I could also tell you that collage is probably the most accessible form of art around. Gather newspapers, magazines and your old glue stick and you’re ready to go. You are probably thinking about a collage you did in kindergarten right now and that is exactly the point.
Furthermore, I could point out the fact that we are saturated with images on a daily basis. Advertisement is probably the first example to come to mind but let’s not forget pictograms, instructions, entertainment and such. Since most images typically try to represent ideas and impose a way to act or think, it would only make sense to use these to challenge their presence in our lives.
Consequently, being confronted with so many images every day makes us lose the ability to make links between them. Synthesis is definitely not the new black. Maybe because we don’t take the time to have a larger, general view of issues or maybe we just don’t care.
I could even expose how, in recent years, collage has entered a new phase of vitality with the development of networks, groups and projects. Social media have allowed collage artists to regroup, collaborate and discuss. The internet has become a major source of inspiration as well as the walls the artists install their work on. And when this is not enough, they put their art in an envelope, lick some stamps and organize an international exhibition.
Of course, all of these arguments are relevant but to me, that’s not why collage.
When printed images are torn, when textures confront, when artefacts are assembled together, when ideas collide, there’s always something grandiose happening, the edification of a new world. It goes way beyond paper and ink, and I like it.