Lost World

COLLAGE ON VIEW

John Stezaker: Lost World
at Christchurch Art Gallery in New Zealand
24 March-22 July 2018

British artist John Stezaker is known for his distinctive, often deceptively simple, collages.

Resolutely analogue in a digital era, Stezaker works with scalpel and glue, slicing images and joining them together in new configurations. Collage, he says, is about “stuff that has lost its immediate relationship with the world” and involves “a yearning for a lost world”. He works from a vast personal archive of out-of-date images–mostly old film stills, vintage actor head shots and antique postcards. Curated by Robert Leonard, Lost World brings together forty collages dating from 2006 to 2016, as well as five poignant found-object-sculptures: a selection of antique mannequin hands, offering a repertoire of gestures. There’s also a film, Crowd, which presents hundreds of film stills of crowd scenes, each for one frame only, in a bewildering blur.

This exhibition tours to Christchurch Art Gallery from City Gallery Wellington. Courtesy of The Approach, London

This exhibition is a news and notes item in Kolaj #22. To see the entire article, SUBSCRIBE to Kolaj Magazine or Get a Copy of the Issue.

Steven M. Specht’s article for Kolaj #14, “Just the Right Elements”, featured works by Stezaker in a discussion of minimalist collage. For more information about “Lost World” and an interview with the artist about the exhibit and his work, visit www.christchurchgallery.org.nz.

This exhibition is a news and notes item in Kolaj #22. To see the entire article, SUBSCRIBE to Kolaj Magazine or Get a Copy of the Issue.

Images by John Stezaker (top to bottom):
Pair XXVII
Tabula Rasa LII
Courtesy of The Approach, London