“The Golden Threads of Collage” by Ric Kasini Kadour
United X by Marla Panko is on cover of this issue of Kolaj. A giant “X” sits atop a pile of shapes like a eureka in a world of confusion. The artist, who hails from Dundas, Ontario, has the most eloquent explanation of her process. “I am guided by the desire to explore these truths through attempting to make visual sense of the complex world around us — to find meaning and order within the disconnected elements and discarded fragments of a chaotic modernity,” she writes.
The ideas of chaos, confusion, and modernity often come up when we talk about collage. What is it about mixing visual elements that leads us to these ideas? Why are we constantly trying to figure out the world we live in? We live in a time when practically the whole of human knowledge is accessible through a small box we carry in our pockets, when we spend hours and hours each day poring over neverending streams of information, and we know more about our world than any human being who has come before us. And yet, perhaps the most prevalent anxiety of our time is our failure to make sense of it all.
At the heart of the practice of many collage artists is exactly this. Like ancient augurs, they mix and match the images and share them with us because, as Panko writes, “I view the creative process as a metaphor for larger, simpler truths.” But there is something else going on, something that is perhaps even more important that divination.
“Those ‘X’ and ‘Z’ Plexiglas letters were discovered at a flea market and were once used on a movie marquee signboard,” writes Panko. “They have a new life – first, repurposed through the artwork, and now [on the cover of Kolaj] used again as in their original context of public signage.” Here is the real magic of collage: the medium’s unique ability to thread the needle of history and stitch our present to our past. After all, all the information in the world is simply the story of what has come before. Knowing it, having access to it, is pointless without it being connected to us, without it becoming part of the fabric of who we are.
***
You may notice some changes in this issue of Kolaj. Gone is In the Studio which will continue online. In its place, we are pleased introduce Exhibition in Print where we present and explore critical ideas about collage by examining work related to a curatorial premise. The purpose is to develop and share an understanding of collage as a medium and a genre. In this feature, we discuss works by collage artists, many of whom are featured in the Kolaj Magazine Artist Directory.
We welcome a number of new writers to Kolaj with this issue. The columns of art historian and critic Daniel Kany regularly appear in the Maine Sunday Telegram and the Portland Press Herald. He contributes a survey of recent collage exhibitions in Maine. Catherine G. Wagley writes about art in Los Angeles for L.A. Weekly, Art21 Blog, and Daily Serving. Kimberly Musial Datchuk is finishing her PhD in Art History from Pennsylvania State University. She reviewed Lily Hinrichsen’s box assemblages.
PURCHASE ISSUE TEN | SUBSCRIBE | FACEBOOK
Image:
United Z
by Marla Panko
20″x20″
relief construction with acrylic, paper and plastic
2012
Image courtesy of the artist