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FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
Entice With Enigma
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, USA. Lillian Trettin is inspired by Southern literature and lore, Flannery O’Connor, and Edgar Allan Poe. Trettin aims to entice, with enigma, the pleasurable sense of an unresolved mystery embedded in the image using rich colors and complicated patterns, a profusion of vegetation and insects, hospitality and danger. MORE
FROM KOLAJ 32
Collage Out in the World
In the Kolaj 32 editorial, Ric Kasini Kadour asks, How can we do better sharing collage with the rest of the world? He writes, "I often find myself saying, Collage is powerful magic. The collage community often feels like we are off in our own private corner of the art world. We excel at sharing that collage magic with each other. How can we do better sharing it with the rest of the world?" MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
The Fragmented Figure
At Transmitter in Brooklyn, New York, USA through 27 June 2021. Homebound and removed from the regular activities of daily life in the city, Najeebah Al-Ghadban, Trevor Davis, and James Gallagher each came up with new working methods and explored new facets of their collage practice. By focusing on the body, “The Fragmented Figure” highlights how crucial and important the care of our bodies has become throughout the pandemic. The emotionally charged works feature appendages and the human figure in new ways, raw and vulnerable, unable to escape the pain and suffering we have all endured over the course of the past year. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Ordalie
At Zedes Art Gallery in Brussels, Belgium through 26 June 2021. With “Ordalie”, David Crunelle is interested in the great figures of Belgian history, whose past glory is confronted with the management of the current health crisis in his country. What remains of the legacy of these national “heroes” when a country regularly makes the headlines in the foreign press because of a disastrous human toll? By exploiting the visuals of the series “Nos Gloires”, published by Artis Historia between 1949 and 1962, the artist exposes national symbols, which are so dear to the eyes of a generation crushed after a year of hazardous management. MORE
FROM KOLAJ 32
Phone-A-Friend
In Kolaj 32, Celia Crane reports on this facinating art initiative where collage takes the stage in a historic web-based interactive art project. She writes, "Based on the popular children’s game, TELEPHONE is a multidisciplinary ekphrastic art project...Launched at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the goal of TELEPHONE was to use the Internet to foster an international community, connecting isolated artists from cities and nations around the world." MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Fusions #6
At Museum Contempo in Shelton, Washington, USA through 27 June 2021. “Fusions #6” features the collage work, film, and installation performance by Kurtiss Lofstrom. Lofstrom presents a dozen collages of found imagery on canvas made over the past five years. He is also exhibiting a sampling of three-dimensional paper mache skull collages, several early super 8 films and a live drumset performance, Eye Rhythm. Lofstrom’s recent work concerns itself with formal aspects of composition, compression and distortion of time, and surreal juxtaposition of ephemera to create surprising new images from the familiar. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS
Collage as Street Art: Letting the Art Find Its Own Audience
Deadline: 20 June 2021. In this four-week, project-driven collage residency, artists will delve into the history, methods and major artists of the “street art” movement with a particular emphasis on collage. Participants will endeavor to put some of those methods into practice, taking their collage art out into the streets. Documenting the entire process will be integral to the project, as the resulting work will be published in a Kolaj Street Krewe book to be announced at a later date. MORE
CALL TO ARTISTS | DEADLINE 20 JUNE 2021
Recent Publications
JOIN KOLAJ INSTITUTE
Members of the Silver Scissors & Golden Glue Societies support the work of Kolaj Institute while receiving an item from Kolaj each month. Those who join before 30 June 2021 will receive The Money $how. LEARN MORE
BOOK
The Money $how: Cash, Labor, Capitalism & Collage
The Money $how juxtaposes contemporary artwork against fragments of history and literature as a way of showing how collage can help us deconstruct culture and understand the world differently. The book takes readers on a tour of late-stage capitalism. The book starts from the premise that money is an idea that shapes contemporary life and present works that invite viewers to consider cash, labor, and capital. Each contemporary artist in the book uses collage to unpack ideas about money and its influence on our culture. Artworks speak about Black wealth, immigrant remittances, and how mid-20th century advertising informs present-day attitudes. Artists collage dollar bills into flowers and mine material remnants to tell stories about home economics. 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. We not only hope you enjoy the articles and images in Kolaj #32, we hope it leads you to asking great questions.
CURRENT ISSUE
Kolaj #32
In the Kolaj #32's editorial, Ric Kasini Kadour writes, “I often find myself saying, Collage is powerful magic. The collage community often feels like we are off in our own private corner of the art world. We excel at sharing that collage magic with each other. How can we do better sharing it with the rest of the world?” Each issue of Kolaj Magazine shows how collage artists are making their way through the world. International in scope, we explore all aspects of collage and its impact on society and culture. MORE
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SPECIAL EDITION
World Collage Day 2021
In honour of World Collage Day, May 8, 2021, Kolaj Magazine is releasing a special edition of the magazine. The Special Edition is full of Cut-Out Pages and stories from inspiring collage artists. MORE
Note: The World Collage Day Special Edition is not included in a regular Kolaj Magazine subscription.
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 Deconstructions
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.
