Perspectives on Collage showcases eight approaches to collage. From conceptual to political and cultural critique, this show highlights the enduring relevance of collage.
Jan Svoboda’s photographs provide the exhibition with its starting point. Work includes Fragment of a Table (1973), the artist’s exploration of the photographic plane using torn-up and folded remnants of his own works in simple arrangements.
Peggy Franck creates assemblages from everyday materials, these are photographed and re-presented as ambiguous two-dimensional images.
Nicole Wermers’ collages borrow from the worlds of design, fashion, advertising and architecture magazines. She rearranges her source material into abstractions while retaining their original commercial allure.
Batia Suter presents Wave (2012) a sculpture of overlapping books featuring photos of waves.
Anna Parkina works in sculpture, painting, photography and performance. Her collages re-appropriate her own photographs into densely layered compositions while echoing the Russian avant-garde, Seventies punk and the cinematic.
C.K. Rajan’s collage series Mild Terrors (1992-96) juxtaposes newspaper images of man-made landscapes or buildings overlaid with close-up details of glamorous magazine images. Delicate but politically charged, the series responds to the surreal, social and cultural contradictions of economic modernisation.
Roy Arden’s tactile collages cast an analytical eye on history while exploring psychological and political themes. The exhibition features nine works including Sweeper (2009) where a man sweeping the ground throws up a cloud of coloured papers and photographic fragments.
Clunie Reid showcases kitsch internet icons collaged alongside loose marker pen drawings, stickers and text. Borrowing from advertising, the Internet and other mainstream media, her work throws today’s visual culture into sharp critical light.
Jan Svoboda works are supported by the Czech Centre, London.