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FROM KOLAJ 33
Making the New Normal
In the editorial for the issue, Ric Kasini Kadour writes, "I believe now what I believed then: Artists have an important role to play in helping us make sense of the world. Over the past year, I watched collage artists tackle the fear, grief, loss, and anger the pandemic thrust upon us. We saw artists assemble and distribute packets of materials to their neighbors. We followed projects that broke through the isolation and reinforced networks. We witnessed the embrace of new technology that allowed us to come together. There is much for this community, this movement to be proud of." MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
A New Kind of Portraiture
New York, New York, USA. Jennifer Deppe Parker collages macro portraits of the eyes of various individuals using pictured materials influenced by the subjects themselves. She wants the viewer to consider this new kind of portraiture beyond cultural, racial, socioeconomic status, or even species differences. To not be limited to traditional visually superficial representations which rarely indicate the subject’s personality or interests. MORE
FROM THE ARTIST DIRECTORY
We Keep Learning
Bogota, Colombia. Red Collage is a collective of three artists Laura Macías and Sabrina Rodríguez (analog collage) and Jorge Tukan (digital collage). They use their individual skills and practices to construct their own place of collage, from which they promote the importance of the collective in strengthening culture. In addition to their common goal, collage has become a creative vehicle that unites these artists today around the same ideas and that combines disparate pieces, reinvents them and then turns them into new actors in the stories. As they write, "Collage is a way of life for us." MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
In the Castle of My Skin
Sonia Boyce at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art through 10 October 2021. "In the Castle of My Skin" features a large angular sculpture by renowned British artist Sonia Boyce based on the shape of pyrite. The structure is clad in wallpapers made by Boyce since the early 1990s. "In the Castle of My Skin" uses the metaphor of skin as a covering, a surface, a barrier, a marker of identity and a connector between internal and external worlds. A newly-commissioned video by Boyce features skateboarders from Tees Valley-based collective Girls Skate North East (GSNE) and ukulele-playing skateboarders in Birmingham. The work connects with the artist’s long-held interests in improvisation as a way of generating new ideas. The skateboarders play in urban environments, using their bodies to understand space and architectural surfaces. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
We Are the Story
A Visual Response to Racism at the National Underground Railroad Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA through 24 September 2021. “We Are the Story: A Visual Response to Racism” showcases fifty-three quilts highlighting the history of civil rights, police brutality and racism in America. Exhibition organizer and curator Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi of the Women of Color Quilters Network curated the exhibition in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The quilts present an alternative visual media to approach sensitive social issues embedded in American memory, such as race, class, gender and shared cultural trauma, in a way that emphasizes storytelling and encourages healing. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Paula Rego's
Creative World
At Tate Britain in London through 24 October 2021. Tate Britain presents the United Kingdom’s largest and most comprehensive retrospective of the work of Paula Rego. An uncompromising artist of extraordinary imaginative power, Rego (born in Lisbon in 1935) redefined figurative art and revolutionised the way in which women are represented. The exhibition tells the story of this artist’s remarkable life, highlighting the personal nature of much of her work and the socio-political context in which it is rooted. It reveals her broad range of references, from comic strips to history paintings. MORE
COLLAGE ON VIEW
She Says
Women, Words, and Power at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA through 24 October 2021. “She Says: Women, Words, and Power” presents the work of eight women artists who include text as a fundamental element of their art practice. Each one engages with text directly, navigating its power and reflecting its influence back to the viewer. Each artist starts with a personal history, a narrative that has deep roots in the written word. Words, for them, are internalized and interpreted according to personal experiences, culture, and values. The artists then shape these signifiers of attitude and belief into both the poetic and the political. Words are formed and sculpted within an artwork to find new definitions of identity and power. MORE
CALLS TO ARTISTS
Deadline: 26 September 2021
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Deadline: 11 September 2021
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Current Issue
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 #33, we hope it leads you to asking great questions.
PRINT MAGAZINE
Kolaj 33
Handling from “The Lives of Dahlias” series by Leslie Fry is on the cover of Kolaj 33. The blending of human, natural, and architectural motifs is a hallmark of Surrealism. Fry steps into this arena with a sword of feminist thinking and cuts through the dogma. Her work shows how Surrealism can reorient our thinking about nature. An article about her work appears in the issue.
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
Recent Publications
NEW BOOK
Oh, Money! Money!
by Eleanor H. Porter
Kolaj Institute is pleased to announce the publication of Oh, Money! Money!by Eleanor H. Porter and illustrated by a collective of collage artists. In Porter’s 1918 novel, a Chicago multi-millionaire struggles to decide to whom he should leave his money. The book is a time capsule of early 20th century American life with a strong focus on the lives of women and observations about material culture and communities before the rampant consumerism of the 1920s and the Great Depression. To illustrate the book, Kolaj Institute organized a residency that brought together ten artists who worked collaboratively to make sixty-three collages that interpret Porter’s novel for a 21st century audience. MORE
FROM ARTSHOP
Kolaj Year Eight Collectors Pack
NOW AVAILABLE! The Kolaj Magazine Year Eight Collectors Pack includes Issues 29, 30, 31, and 32. 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. 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. Artists collage dollar bills into flowers and mine material remnants to tell stories about home economics. MORE
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.
