Assemblage

Assemblage, collage, mixed media is al visually very similar. Small scale or large scale, free standing, relief, extremely sculptural or flat this type of art is a choice made by artists that are not content with tradition. Kurt Swchitters, Robert Rauschenberg, and Joseph Cornell are examples of all the types or styles mentioned.

Picasso and Braque to Romare Bearden worked with collage. Picasso’s pieces started to push outward from the wall (his guitars). Bearden’s work was that of a restless artist that needed to create but was poor, out of money, down on his luck in Harlem. His mind and eye open he worked from the world around him, the streets he walked upon and there came his materials. Then he went home, in his heart and his subject matter was defined.

Outsider art, found art, this is art made by people needing maybe a more tactile visual experience. They need to not just compose but to bend and twist and glue and tie their material together. They see the word material not like the traditional paint, pencil, paper artists, but the selection is open, free, found. I could glue or? That is the question. How do I put this together? What are my choices? What is lying around? What do I have at hand?

This is an intimate type of work when done small scale. It uses personal materials, objects that have some meaning or purpose besides what is expected of them, photographs, news clippings, a piece of cloth or wall paper. Here, everything means something. It is a style of working that does not always yield art that looks like art as we expect it.

The viewer, the audience must find meaning for himself or herself. So in a way not only is the art seen as personal to the artists, it is also personal to the viewer. I find it an art that is made because it has to be. Maybe there are no words for the feelings that are encountered, but somehow something needs to be said so the artists, the maker finds away. They find a means of expressioning them selves. Their heads and their hearts. One does not go to the art store. One works with what they have. These artists tend to see the potential in things that others disgard or throw out as trash. In some ways this art is not so educated, or sophisticated looking. It does not look like what art looks like, therefore it asks, What is art? Where does it come from? Why do we make it? see also the links below http://mhsartgallerymac.wikispaces.com/Collage http://mhsartgallerymac.wikispaces.com/Fibre+and+Weaving http://mhsartgallerymac.wikispaces.com/Mixed+Media

Pablo Picasso

Kurt Swchitters

KSKSKS KS KS Joseph Cornell

Below are Robert Rauschnenberg Detail of the Bed

This piece is his designs for a dance piece with Merce Cunningham. A young RobertThe Bed

The piece below is not by Robert Rauschenberg. It is an assemblage though consisting of wire, paint, a stick and other objects.

The following pieces are considered Outsider Art. These pieces are made by Julia Scott. She has Downs Syndrome and started making these pieces. They are essentially wrappings. Some get sculptural while some stay as large ovals or Spheres. They are quite lovely in their innocence but the space they take up is demanding In that it begs you attention then inspection.

Johann Dieter Wassmenn below John Chamberlin below

Betye Saar below

Kurt Schwitters below

Being buried in his car, below





below is the work by H.C.Westermann

Louise Nevelson