ART-PRESENTATION: The Ends of Collage

Jack Goldstein (1943-2003), The Knife, 1975, 16mm film, color, silent. Duration: 4 min., © The Estate of Jack Goldstein, Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery ArchiveThe group exhibition “The Ends of Collage” at Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery in New York and London takes a sweeping look at the history of collage, from Max Ernst’s Dadaist experiments to the contemporary trickery of John Stezaker. The exhibition in two halves (the other being at Luxembourg & Dayan’s London space).

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery Archive

The title of the exhibition “The Ends of Collage”, refers both literally and metaphorically to the place where collage fulls its calling, at the ends or edges of pictures and fragments, where separate worlds come together or break apart from one another. But it also suggests an historical paradigm, where collage is considered as a medium that existed in the so called ‘age of mechanical reproduction’ and has now been overcome by the new logic of the digital age. The curator Yuval Etgar states: “In a time where the term ‘cut and paste’ refers more often to allegorical and digital operations than to the use of scissors and glue, it seems imperative to go back and ex-amine the technical invention that lies on the historical seam between pictures and images, between manual craft and the me-diated reality of our time”. The exhibition unfolds across three platforms, each offering a different perspective from which to review the medium of collage and its legacies. In New York the exhibition is dedicated to some of the technical preconditions of collage (variety of cuts, masks and windows, image manipulations and the notion of ‘edge’). There are on presentation works by: Jean (Hans) Arp, Giacomo Balla, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Mark Flood, Jack Goldstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Lee Krasner, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Linder, René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman and john Stezaker. In London, the exhibition shifts the  focus towards some of the major themes that characterize the medium (fantasy, the domestic sphere, dismemberment of the social or private body, and the mobility of images), with works by: Jean (Hans) Arp, André Breton, jacqueline Lamba Breton, Nusch Éluard, Max Ernst, Mark Flood, Jack Goldstein, Richard Hamilton, louise lawler, Linder, Joan Mirò, Louise Nevelson, Giulio Paolini, Richard Prince, Kurt Schwitters, John Stezaker and Yves Tanguy. The third platform takes place on the pages of a printed publication, edited by the curator of the exhibition, which brings together various theoretical motivations that precipitated the emergence of collage at the beginning of the twentieth century along with those that expanded the medium beyond its traditional limits with the emergence of digital cultures in the late ‘70s.

Info: Curator: Yuval Etgar, Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, 64 East 77th Street, New York, Duration: 27/2-15/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-17:00 and Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, 2 Savile Row, London, Duration: 10/3-13/5/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-17:00, Sat 12:00-16:00, www.luxembourgdayan.com

John Stezaker, Mask (Film Portrait Collage), 2016, Collage, 24.2 x 20.5 cm, © The artist - 2016, Photo: FXP Photography, Courtesy The Approach London,  Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery Archive
John Stezaker, Mask (Film Portrait Collage), 2016, Collage, 24.2 x 20.5 cm, © The artist – 2016, Photo: FXP Photography, Courtesy The Approach London, Luxembourg & Dayan Archive

 

 

 René Magritte, Les fenêtres de l’aube, 1928, Oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm, © ADAGP-Paris & DACS-London 2016. Private Collection, Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan
René Magritte, Les fenêtres de l’aube, 1928, Oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm, © ADAGP-Paris & DACS-London 2016. Private Collection, Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan

 

 

John Stezaker, Untitled, 2015, Collage, 24.2 x 20.5 cm, © The artist - 2016, Photo: FXP Photography, Courtesy The Approach London,  Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery Archive
John Stezaker, Untitled, 2015, Collage, 24.2 x 20.5 cm, © The artist – 2016, Photo: FXP Photography, Courtesy The Approach London, Luxembourg & Dayan Archive