Paolozzi’s assiduous collecting of images and
objects from very diverse sources and their use as components in collages was a
central theme of his artistic practice.
In the mid-Sixties this approach was very much of the time. In music, for example, the same approach was
evident in the work of The Beatles. In
his magnificent book, Revolution in the
Head, Ian Macdonald wrote:
The Beatles liked to surround themselves with a continuous
low-level media babble of loosely scattered newspapers and magazines and
permanently murmuring radios and tvs.
Apart from the fact that it amused them to live like this – relishing
the coincidences and clashes of high and low style that it entailed – they
valued simultaneity for its random cross-references which suggested ideas that
might otherwise not have occurred to them.
What really matters of course is not the process of
creativity but its outputs. The superb quality
of such as Day in the Life or The Silken World is enduring.
The juxtaposition of the head of Michelangelo’s David – one of the very best known icons
of high art – with a picture to the left of Mickey Mouse and the three
curiously clumsily rendered figures above, is an illogical, dissonant concept,
yet brings about a visually harmonious image.
The surrounding patterns and their saturated colours complement the figurative
elements, creating a level of eye-candy indulgence appropriate for the cultural
world’s sculpted superstar.
No comments:
Post a Comment