COLLAGE ARTIST TRADING CARD SPOTLIGHT
Luc Fierens in Collage Artist Trading Cards Pack 6
“Networked collagist and visual poet provocateur” Luc Fierens’ collage work emerged out of Poesia Visiva, Mail Art and Fluxus circles. His diverse practice focuses on language/image as a raw material and the exploration of alternative forms of distribution and communication. In 2007, Geof Huth described Fierens’ collage as “a particular brand of verbo-visual collage that makes its points by abrupt collocations of disparate fragments of image and word.” His publications and works are in major archives, museums, and private collections in Europe and the United States.
Fierens is one of the 15 artists featured in Collage Artist Trading Cards Pack #6. Collage Artist Trading Card packs are a tool for discovering contemporary, fine art collage. Each card is a full colour, 5.5” x 3.5” postcard with rounded corners. An example of an artist’s work is on the front of the card and the artist’s public contact information is on the back. We interviewed Fierens about his work.
What are you working on these days?
These days, I’m working on pieces for a Surrealism show in a museum in Japan and for a solo show in a gallery in Italy. I’m also working on collabs with Elish (Elisabetta Falanga) for a new book for the publisher in de keuken in Brussels.
Has collaboration and collage always been part of your art practice?
I’ve been working as a networked collagist provocateur since 1984. I started writing experimental poetry and putting collage elements next to the words. I published in Lotta Poetica, an Italian avant-garde magazine for the Poesia Visiva movement, and I became a visual poet.
What is Poesia Visiva?
Poesia Visiva is a neo-avantgarde of the 70’s, when Italian artists wanted to question consumer society and mass media. One of the theorists of this movement was Umberto Eco when he was doing his research in semiotics. This neo-avantgarde connected with the Fluxus and Mail-artists active around the world, but worked mostly underground because the market preferred Arte Povera. I still work very regularly in Italy where my work is collected in several archives and museums, because I have participated in magazines, events, group shows and with the Mail-art network since the 80’s. My Mail-art has been shown worldwide in several shows, including the “Analog Network” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2014.
Your collage, La dolce guerriera, is included in Collage Artist Trading Cards Pack 6. How do you explain the idea behind it?
Dolce guerriera is about beauty. For me, female beauty is the only beauty left in this reality of virtual life. The two main themes in my work are female beauty and violence. I guess the collage speaks about the conflicts of the power, women rights, and religion. I only question, provoke…the public must answer.
La dolce guerriera is minimalist. How did it come together for you?
I made this work by putting only two elements together. One of the images was lying on my worktable for weeks and then one day I found a match of images that started the dialogue or the connection. This is the way I often work. Since the 80’s, I have collected an archive of images, images from an old memory, often black-and-white, not photoshopped, sharp and clear to be combined with slick false images from today and this combination cuts into our reality. Like Pasolini said, “Search the real in this reality.”
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Fierens’ artwork is available at EXIT11 in Grand-Leez, Belgium and on his blog at lucfierens.tumblr.com. His 2007 book, Gunpowpoems, from RedFox Press is available HERE.