This is Collage
Armand Brac, Arpi Agdere, Carl Warnick, Chandler McWilliams, George Porcari, Graham Moore, Luc Fierens, Stacy Elaine Dacheux, Tarrah Krajank, Zach Collins
Haphazard Gallery, Los Angeles
July 9 - August 6, 2016
Many view collage as the foundation of 20th century modern art because it is associated closely with the monumental art movements of that time from Braque and Picasso to Max Ernst and Jacques Villeglé. From its humble beginning of primarily two dimensional cut and paste to later literary and filmic practices, collage is vital and relevance still. Originated in Europe the technique to “coller” or to glue as an artistic production or assemblage is now more than 100 years old. One of the aims in this group show is to present new works of the collage from within its traditional framework, associated deep roots in political and cultural commentary to humor, into the new setting of the 21st century.
With modern cinema and advertising both in print and in motion, our culture has come to accept jump cutting and juxtaposition used in surrealist collage and Dada assemblage. These media deal with the last century’s sensibility in visual thinking when the world was represented in fragmented realities. At its heart, the strength of collage is its poetic tactics to create meanings through rupture and upheaval and to dissent. It first negates and sometime even obliterates the existing mainstream narrative and the results are unpremeditated, unexpected, disparate, and unanswerable. These assemblages will resist both identification and categorization.
This is Collage represents a wide range of styles, attributes, and compositional motifs. Whether made with scissors and paste, or in a manner more technologically advanced, this group show will juxtapose a collection of new collages made by emerging artists within the context of the 21st century. In the Information age where information and images are ever present perhaps these new collages can reverse our relationship with the culture of images from information back to the poetics.
Armand Brac is an independent collage artist from Paris, France. Armand has been creating collages since 2012. The collages are all handmade with discarded materials on cardboards or book covers.
Arpi Agdere is an artist whose focus is in the photographic medium. Originally from Turkey, Istanbul, she lives in Los Angeles and received her BFA from Art Center in 2013.
Carl Warnick is a MFA graduate from Art Center College of Design. He makes art and resides in Chicago.
Chandler McWilliams is a writer, artist, and programmer. He has studied film, photography, and political science; he received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Valencia, CA and completed graduate work in philosophy at The New School For Social Research in New York City. He lives in Los Angeles where he teaches in the department of Design Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts.
George Porcari is an artist and photographer based in Los Angeles. Born in Lima Peru, George Porcari emigrated to LA in the 60’s and begun his lifelong vocation in observing, documenting and greeting his cities and his surroundings. Porcari attended Pratt Institute in Manhattan and Art Center of Design in Pasadena where he has also taught film history classes and worked as an acquisition librarian for many years.
Graham Moore is a UK-born artist and graphic designer who studied at Wimbledon School of Art and East Ham College of Technology and came to the City of Angels via London. Graham Moore teaches at Art Center College of Design and other schools around town, where his students learn non-digital, handmade methods of operation.
Luc Fierens is from Mechelen, Belgium; he has been a networked collagist and visual poet provocateur since 1984, his work emerged out of Poesia Visiva, Mail-Art and Fluxist circles.
Stacy Elaine Dacheux is an artist and writer based in LA. Stacy received an M.F.A. on Writing & Poetics, Naropa University, Boulder, CO and a B.A. English, Creative Writing Minor, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
Tarrah Krajnak was born in Lima, Peru in 1979. She received her MFA from the University of Notre Dame. Krajnak is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Pitzer College. She taught previously at Cornell University and the University of Vermont. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
HAPHAZARD
1543 Sawtelle Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025
