I remember making collages in my third grade art class. Taking bits and pieces from magazines and juxtaposing pictures with varying contours of construction paper and covering all with a varnish of glitter. Even my most thoughtful works seemed fragmented and haphazard and I have carried this attitude of collage ever since. I doubted that collage could ever be termed an 'elegant' art form. Even Picasso's Bottle of Suze (see previous post Bottle of Suze Anyone?) does not seem fluid or lovely to me, though I find the subject matter and materials fascinating. I suppose I could only see collage as a collection of materials meant to be studied in separate parts with the composition as a whole being a complicated and sloppy secondary form. In short, collage had no aesthetic appeal for me... until now.
John Stezaker is an exhibition that surveys approximately the last forty years of this English artist's work and is the exhibition that altered my perception of collage. Before the show officially opened I had a chance to view these artworks as they were hanging in storage. As my supervisor slowly pulled out the rack of pictures I saw my first dozen of the close to ninety artworks in the show and was immediately charmed. Stezaker's works are seemingly effortless compositions of two or three images pooled together to form a single, surreal picture with a natural flow running across and connecting its separate parts. In other words, they are 'elegant' collages.
John Stezaker creates his collages using found images, often pictures and postcards he has purchased from antique shops or garage sales. He then cuts, trims, slices, and overlays images in order to create a new composition. Though his found images often consist of very different subjects and scenes he combines them in such a way that there is a seemingly natural connection from one image to the other. In this way he creates a surreal picture that our eyes and brain process as one continuous image. The images are simultaneously both beautiful and bizarre. Stezaker has stated he likes to make the final artworks as ambiguous as possible so interpretation is left up to the viewer.
I would now like to discuss my two favorite pieces from the exhibition, or should I say my two favorite pairs? The collages are entitled Pair III and Pair IV, and are a part of the artist's Masks series. Both of these artworks consist of two parts: a movie still photograph and a scenic postcard. Both collages also utilize the same movie still with different postcards located in the same position over the couples' faces. In Pair III the tops of the two cliffs that flank the stream line up seamlessly with the round curves of the figures' heads. It is the same with Pair IV, with not only the cliff faces lining up but also the gently swirling curls along the bottom of the woman's hair lining up perfectly with a rock outcrop on the cliff.
I interpret these pieces as the evolution of a deteriorating relationship that the couple has somehow managed to hide from their closest friends, but cannot hide for much longer. I see this because I imagine the couple underneath the postcards passionately kissing. While they kiss for their viewers, apparently very close and comfortable, the postcards show that there is actually a rift between them. The water is gradually widening this gap with a consistent, steady flow that wares away at the stone faces of the cliffs. The couples' actual faces are stone themselves, a frozen facade to hide their true feelings. Pair III shows the water flow when it was just a stream and Pair IV shows it later when the rift has widened into a river. There are some people on the bridge overlooking the water, representing those who have observed the separation and can see the relationship for what it truly is; the secret is out. What started out as two separate images, a young couple locked in passionate embrace and a picturesque postcard, with two different meanings, true love and the beauty of nature, ends in a combination that tells the sad story of a weakening relationship.
So simple, so beautiful, so elegant. John Stezaker has shown me that collage is not a clumsy art form and has the potential to emanate a harmonious and beautiful image. I will continue to enjoy his works as I patrol the exhibition gallery until they are taken down in April. It's one of the parts of the job I love the most.
What do you think of John Stezaker's collages? Do you have a favorite collage artist? What are your feelings about the collage as art?
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