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:
