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COLLAGE ON VIEW
A Short Long History
Anna Boghiguian at S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Belgium through 2 May 2021. Boghiguian traces the history of the global cotton trade through a new installation and existing works. Boghiguian crystallises her experiences, reading of literature and news reports into drawings, collages, books, cut-out figures and complex installations. Her works are distinctly visual and expressive, yet can also be read as stories. Boghiguian uses them to address global issues, which she interprets in a personal way and links back to people’s experiences, especially those who are victims of oppression. MORE
FROM KOLAJ 31
Februllage
& The Importance
of Artist Play
In 2019, Rhed Fawell of the Edinburgh Collage Collective and Miss.Printed of the Scandinavian Collage Museum teamed up to give us a month-long parlour game: Februllage. In Kolaj 31, we review Februllage with an eye towards how this annual event is a 21st manifestation of Surrealist parlor games in the 1920s. "If the internet is the house of the 21st century collage movement, then Instagram is its living room. It is the place where artists come together." MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
The Journey & the Joy
Crewe, Cheshire, United Kingdom. For Les Jones, collage is all about the journey and the joy of the creative act. Jones works intuitively to create random and abstract compositions using found materials and acrylic paints. Guided by the materials and mediums that he uses, each piece emerges through the process and only takes on whatever meaning it has when it is finished. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Drawn to Paper
A group show curated by Susan Rostow at Atlantic Gallery in New York City, through 13 February 2021. The gallery writes, "Paper, as a medium or as a workable surface, has an exciting and versatile appeal to an artist’s imagination. 'Drawn to Paper' includes the work of thirty-five artists, who push the boundaries of paper’s possibilities. The exhibition includes printmaking, sculpture, book arts, mixed-media and more. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Talking to the Ancestors
Charlie Lucas at the Paul R. Jones Museum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA through 26 February 2021. Self-taught assemblage artist and painter Lucas is the youngest of a pantheon of outsider artists who rose to public attention in the latter part of the twentieth century. Lucas bridges a couple of generations of artists. In his own family, Lucas is the descendent of several generations of artisans and craftspeople, including his grandfather and great grandfather who were blacksmiths. He traces his work directly from them. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS :: Artist Lab: Art Meets History in New Mexico
Deadline: 28 February 2021 :: LEARN MORE
FROM KOLAJ 31
Lisa Barcy Wins Awards
Collage artist and filmmaker Lisa Barcy’s stop animation work The Ephemeral Orphanage is getting serious recognition. Barcy won the Stellar Animation Award at the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival in Hoboken, New Jersey. Barcy also won Best Stop Motion Short at the Los Angeles Animation Festival. "The film explores the adults’ attempt to dictate what girls learn, and the children’s talent for discovering forbidden knowledge." MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Pretty Images & Ugly Words
Union City, Indiana, USA. Jolie Nunez-Noggle creates art with pretty images and ugly words. She has always been obsessed with antiques and vintage magazines, and uses that aesthetic in her art. She mostly uses found objects, dolls, plastic toys, vintage paper dolls, images from magazines from the 1940s and 1950s and lots of glitter. MORE
Recent Publications
Our goal with every issue is that Kolaj Magazine is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of contemporary collage in art, culture, and society. We not only hope you enjoy the articles and images in Kolaj #31, we hope it leads you to asking great questions.
CURRENT ISSUE
Kolaj #31
If Kolaj #31 has an overarching theme, it would be about how artists are pulling from the past to speak to the now. We swim in a stream of ideas, some of which come at us so quick and hard that we rarely have a chance to consider where they come from…or where they are going. What ever happened to those stolen collages? Why do we think these things about some people but not others? Why can’t we name five scientists who are women? What is my place in the art world? How do I speak to my community? These are deep, critical questions that artists are trying to make sense of for themselves and for the people around them. It is exciting to tell their stories. Learning about them, what they did, how they work makes us better artists, writers, and, hopefully, better people. Collage is powerful magic. MORE
COLLAGE BOOK
Unfamiliar Vegetables: Variations in Collage
Unfamiliar Vegetables is a collection of collage where each of the fifty artists interpreted, in their own way, Carlotta Bonnecaze’s 1892 Carnival float design Familiar Vegetables. Project organizer Christopher Kurts observed, “Unfamiliar Vegetables is an experiment in controlled chaos….tiny variations within each artist’s creative sphere accumulate until the outcomes are as unique as the people creating them.” MORE
COLLAGE COMMUNITIES
The International Directory of Collage Communities
The 104-page book is a survey of collage networks, guilds, communities, and projects as well as online efforts and groups focused on collage research. For each community, the directory presents their key activities, mission, how to join, and a bit of their history. Copious images illustrate the book. MORE
BOOK
Radical Reimaginings
The curators of the 96-page book invited artists who use collage in their practice to put forward a work of art that offers a visual narrative that speaks to the unprecedented change unfolding in 2020. An essay by Ric Kasini Kadour reflects upon collage's unique ability to imagine new realities. Forty artists from nine countries and multiple Indigenous peoples—Salish-Kootenai/Métis-Cree/Sho-Ban, Tlingit/Nisga’a, Oglala/Lakota, and Seneca Nation—offer a variety of perspectives. The voices of Black, Latinx, Native, and white Americans mingle with those from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Canada, France, and Germany. Artwork is accompanied by a statement in which the artists describe how they want to reimagine the world. MORE
BOOK
Collage Magic
by Emma Anna
Part autobiography, part fantasy, Emma Anna’s vision of The New Old World (aka The NOW) fuses vintage ephemera with modern imaging technologies. Emma shapes this strange world by using the pen tool from Adobe Photoshop as her magic wand, in the process declaring herself to be a “collage magician”. Part artist book, part document of art making, Collage Magic, from La Casa Verde Editions, is Emma Anna’s journey through magic and art. MORE
BOOK
Revolutionary Paths
When the collage is presented in exhibition, it is often done so without the critical framework granted other mediums. In "Revolutionary Paths: Critical Issues in Collage", exhibition curator Ric Kasini Kadour presents examples of collage that represent various aspects and takes on the medium. Each work in the exhibition represents the potential for deeper inquiry and further curatorial exploration of the medium. MORE
BOOK
Cultural Decontructions
Collage is unique as a medium in that it uses as its material artifacts from the world itself. To harvest those fragments, the artist must first deconstruct culture; they must select, cut, and remove the elements they do not wish to use and then reconstruct work that tells a new story. In "Cultural Deconstructions: Critical Issues in Collage", exhibition curator Ric Kasini Kadour presents examples of collage artists who are deconstructing identity as a way to critique culture. MORE
Our goal with every issue is that Kolaj Magazine is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of contemporary collage in art, culture, and society. Each issue of Kolaj Magazine is dedicated to reviewing and surveying contemporary collage with an international perspective. We are interested in collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century art movement.
