Some more on collage

Robin Spencer, in his Introduction to Eduardo Paolozzi, Writings and Interviews, expands on the Paolozzi quote in my last post: 

Paolozzi’s account of collage as a ‘symbolic art, like life itself – a tangle unravelled’ – describes not only its magical properties, but also the fundamental purpose of making art.  Collage, a ‘projection of experience denied’, enables both artist and viewer to make sense of themselves and of a world which is chaotic and meaningless.  Collage embodies the revisionary nature of art, because the artist has to destroy before he can create; he constantly reviews his material by adding to and subtracting from it.  The ‘damage, erasure, destruction, disfigurement and transformation’ process to which Paolozzi subjects things to make collage is necessary before new metaphors can be given life.  The creative act of collage, which embodies the destruction-creation myth, is ‘a method of taking the world apart and reassembling it in the order that one understands, and that order is ruled by one’s emotions, intuitions and intellect. That is Surrealism.  And that is perception’.

EA # 708 Why children commit suicide . . . read next month’s issue:

EA # 709 An Empire of Silly Statistics . . . A Fake War for Public Relations:

Paolozzi on collage and two more great examples from General Dynamic F.U.N.

For a 1977 exhibition catalogue Paolozzi wrote: 

Making collage can be a symbolic art, like life itself – a tangle unravelled.  Experience denied or an iconographic interpretation divorced from the niceties of formal analysis.  As in a painting by Carpaccio or Bosch improbable events can be frozen into peculiar assemblies by manipulation – time and space can be drawn together into new spatial strategy.  Dream and poetry can be fused without the usual concessions to graphic limitations.  Figures from a Turkish landscape trapped by cruelty may be released and find themselves perplexed and frightened in a French nursery flanked by the mechanical sphinx. 

I would hope that for anyone perhaps confused by the General Dynamic F.U.N. prints, that statement will help them understand the creative concepts. 

The Suite is an exemplar of the times – when the availability and broadcast of imagery from each and every cultural source was suddenly expanding exponentially.  General Dynamic F.U.N. showed how such diverse imagery could be utilised to evoke responses based on innovative, non-linear thinking, (that's you, the viewer, doing a lot of the work!). 

EA # 704 Calling Radio Free America:

EA # 707 Cary Grant as a male war bride:



General Dynamic F.U.N. - first two selected prints

The June 1968 issue of Studio International announced: Eduardo Paolozzi’s new series, General Dynamic F.U.N., given a recent preview at the ‘Obsessive Image’ exhibition at the I.C.A. will be issued in three editions: on film, as a paperback book and as a limited graphic edition.

The graphic edition – sometimes tagged as part 2 of Moonstrips – was published by Editions Alecto in 1970; it had been 5 years in the creating.  The suite included 50 image sheets collated into 5 version sets – 70 prints of each, making for a total edition size of 350.  Some prints were photo-litho, some screenprints. 

The first print, a photo-litho, with EA stamp # 700 is Transparent creatures hunting New Victims:

EA # 703, also photo-litho is Early mental traits of 300 geniuses:

Pattern

The final look at Moonstrips here is at the pattern-rich picture prints, six of them below:

It would be difficult to overrate the value of pattern in artistic practice.  It enables the creation of visual harmonies, symmetry and rhythms.  These can be highly instrumental in manipulating the viewer’s mood, (usually towards calmness), as well as their visual experience.  And, where a pattern is interrupted/disturbed, a sense of unease can be evoked.

Pattern helps establish order and solidity – in traditional painting think for example of how Vermeer’s tiled floors underpin the 3D effect of his interiors.  In modern art, where there is no concern with perspective, pattern has often been used to ground and integrate disparate imagery within a single painting/print – this is a technique of Paolozzi’s.  His chequers and squares and stripes slosh about on a print like the stock of a soup in which the diverse chunks of pictures/words can be seen and appreciated as part of something which overall is more appealing than the individual ingredients. 

Whilst the use of pattern for integrating purposes is so notable in prints such as A formula that can shatter into a million glass bullets in the Universal Electronic Vacuum suite:



that portfolio also included continuous pattern images such as Memory Matrix, (below), similar to those seen in Moonstrips.

Paolozzi collected patterns as raw materials for his collages – as he did all sorts of images/objects – from a vast range of sources:  food boxes, sweet wrappers, crochet patterns, engineering drawings, etc.  It is pleasing to see that these often mundane visual devices live on beyond their original context in some of the very best artworks of the mid-Twentieth Century.

Monkey Business

Monkeys and apes figured across the years in Paolozzi’s ‘image vocabulary’, for example: a chimp in The Dynamics of Biology, (Bunk!), 1952; another in uniform in Gina Lollobrigida, (General Dynamic F.U.N.), 1970; a pair in Pop Art Redefined, 1971. 

Among the unsigned picture prints of Moonstrips one of the most striking is ea 782 King Kong King Kongking Kong:

Here is Paolozzi’s expertise in deriving and combining patterns deployed to great effect.  As for this specific ape, I can’t help but wonder if there’s an echo here of ‘Tortured Life’ from As Is When – the poor old misunderstood creature; persecuted and apparently unpleasant, but, as Hollywood showed us, also capable of the most tender feelings! 

That tenderness is perhaps evident in ea 763 The Windmills, he murmured, . . .

Paolozzi had first used this image in an early Bunk! Collage.  Here it is below as featured in the facsimile series printed in 1972 and published by Snail Chemicals:

And, it’s the words that indicate an unseen, but possibly lurking ape in ea 750 My Pal the Gorilla Gargantua:

How’s that for colour vibrancy!

For more on 60s prints, please have a look at http://davidbuckden.wordpress.com/

The Elephant in the modernised room and some secrets

Formica was a key material for DIY dads, (mine especially), in the Fifties and Sixties; whapped over old table tops, shelves etc., its groovy patterns helped turned Edwardian homes like ours into spaces fit to watch Juke Box Jury in on a Saturday evening.  Invented as far back as 1912, it was a laminate made from kraft paper with a melamine top surface.  Formica-Formikel is the seventh signed print:

Final signed print is Secrets of the Internal Combustion Engine.  Paolozzi was fascinated by engineering and loved related imagery.  Back in the Fifties/Sixties understanding of technology was limited outside specialist communities.  When cutaway drawings of cars and aeroplanes began to appear more frequently in comics/general interest magazines, it really was like letting light in on magic.

Obscure and Obvious

The fifth and sixth signed prints are Ernie and T.T. at St Louis Airport and Donald Duck meets Mondrian:

I suspect that Ernie . . .is to be viewed just as the very pleasing composition of images and pattern it is – I have been unable to deduce to whom/what ‘Ernie’ or ‘T.T’ refer: any suggestions welcome.

Donald . . . is clearly straightforward in terms of external reference and a good example of Paolozzi’s love of combining ‘high’ with ‘low’ brow imagery.  As for the iconography, it’s notable that both Donald Duck and the painting style of Mondrian are instantly recognisable however apparently artlessly they are represented.  That must be a good test of how deeply ingrained into our consciousness a 'brand' has become, something I was exploring in my own painting back in 2003 - see example below, Turkish Delight:



In 1987 Paolozzi said: It is now acceptable to talk seriously about Mickey Mouse as an icon, and even to mention Mickey Mouse and Jesus in the same breath; (Quoted in Eduardo Paolozzi; Writings and Interviews, edited by Robin Spencer; ISBN 0-19-817412-8).