Kolaj #23 delivers a look at the wonderful world of contemporary collage: the people who make it and the people who love it.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Unplugged by Rhed Fawell is on the cover. The collage was part of the Edinburgh Collage Collective’s show, “Vinylism”, at the Tent Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, 3-14 July 2018. All the works in the show were inspired by the vinyl record. The story of how the collective is raising “A Tartan Collage Army” through open submissions appears in the issue.

In the issue’s editorial, Ric Kasini Kadour compares the story of The Bead Lady of New Orleans to the life of the artist. He writes, “Sometimes when we are lucky, we make something magical, something that speaks to someone else.”

In our round-up of News & Notes from the world of collage, we report on an exhibition of large scale collage in Palo Alto, California; a show of Firelei Báez at Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; a new gallery in Hastings, England that has a heavy emphasis on collage; and an app by Italian collage artist Giuseppe Ragazzini that uses collage.

In “Unbounded,” Etty Yaniv investigates the diverse interrelations between collage and drawing as manifested in the artworks of Ethan Murrow, Simonette Quamina, Simona Prives, Maria de Los Angeles, and Hugo Crosthwaite.

We review a collage 101 by Holly Chastain: If You Can Cut, You Can Collage. The explanations of concepts like scale, rhythm, depth, which she acknowledges are straight out of art school, remind us that these attributes are useful to viewing collage critically.

A new art fair is raising the profile of collage. Paper Positions, with editions in Berlin, Basel, and Munich, is putting collage front and center. We report on a selection of collage that was on view at the Basel edition in June 2018.

Christy Mitchell’s collaged cigarette boxes hint at toxic masculinity. In “Smoke ‘em If You Got ‘em,” we review these curious three-dimensional works.

Dale Copeland‘s International Collage Exhibition/Exchange comes to an end after twenty years. We offer this first-person account of this project that has seen the exchange of over 20,000 collages.

The small format, firm backing, and ubiquitous availability make the playing card an ideal starting point for collage. We profile LuEllen Joy Giera‘s Monthly International Playing Card Exchange.

The first time Quebec collagist Virginie Maltais wrote her name, it was in reverse. Dyslexic, it was natural to her but she soon learned not to the rest of the world. She writes, “Collage felt like a liberation…Finally, there was no right or wrong answer.”

In Kolaj #23, Kolaj Magazine is pleased to announce the reintroduction of The Cut-Out Page. A staple of the first three years of the magazine, we retired the feature with Issue 12, but recently revived the concept when we invited collage artists to design cut out pages for the World Collage Day Special edition. The feature was not only popular, it was informative to see how artists selected and organized the fragments. We have decided to once again make The Cut-Out Page a regular feature of the magazine. This issue features a pink-themed page by Sue Guildford from Sandbach, Cheshire, United Kingdom.

Artist Portfolios in Kolaj #23

Kolaj Magazine features portfolios of contemporary artists in each issue alongside critical commentary as a means of developing a deeper understanding of collage as both a medium and a genre. Artists featured in the current issue:

Matthew Zorn
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

“Through glaze calculation and sculpture, I methodically develop the textures and colours that I find most intriguing or unsettling from my collage work to create my ceramic objects.”

Lybra Ray
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

“She scans magazines for images that resonate with her soul and collects them to tell a positive story that reflects her own personal exploration of life.”

Amy Tingle
Nutley, New Jersey, USA

“Her artwork is a strange visual diary where she muses about motherhood and the feminist political landscape using everything from paint chips to broken skateboard decks and paper bags.”

Albert Anglès Espeso
La Guàrdia dels Prats, Tarragona, Spain

“Collage for me is not an artistic technique, but my way of seeing, of feeling and of thinking the world.”

Paulina Flores
El Paso, Texas, USA

“I am not very good with my words or writing, so I chose to incorporate my beliefs and my frustrations into something that I take pride in doing, collaging.”

And as always, a Kolaj Artist Directory & Collage Books.

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