Inspired Collage Assignment
Collage
A picture or design that is created by adhering such basically flat elements as newspapers, wallpaper, printed text, illustrations, photographs, cloth, string, etc... to a flat surface.
"Collage" was originally a French word, derived from the word coller, meaning "to paste."
Materials
You may use and are encouraged to examine all print media including product packaging, advertisements, maps, photos of animals, humans, cars, bikes, etc… incorporate your interests into this project.
There are some materials/resources here (at school), but please bring in your own resources as well, especially if you have specific imagery that you want to use.
Goal
To compose a rich and compelling collage using magazine sources and…inspired by an art historical movement.
Below are some Modern Art movements, including a brief history (please check that have a tradition of using collage but you may reference another art movement as well.
Dada: Collage/Photomontage: An artistic and literary movement formed in response to the disasters of World War I (1914–18) and to an emerging modern media and machine culture. Dada artists sought to expose accepted and often repressive conventions of order and logic, favoring strategies of chance, spontaneity, and irreverence. Dada artists experimented with a range of mediums, from collage and photomontage to everyday objects and performance, exploding typical concepts of how art should be made and viewed and what materials could be used. An international movement born in neutral Zurich and New York, Dada rapidly spread to Berlin, Cologne, Hannover, Paris, and beyond.
Often had a political bent or criticized the status quo through the incorporation of images and text.
Surrealism: Surrealism is a cultural movement and artistic style that originated in the mid-1920s. Surrealism style uses visual imagery from the subconscious mind to create art without the intention of logical comprehensibility. Dream-like imagery
The Surrealists saw collage as a means to enact what they considered to be the fundamental poetic activity of the unconscious mind, the combination of disparate entities to create a new thing. Both Surrealist poets and artists used collage techniques.
Suprematism: Suprematism is an art movement founded by Kazimir Malevich in Russia, around 1913. He said...Art no longer cares to serve the state and religion, it no longer wishes to illustrate the history of manners, it wants to have nothing further to do with the object, as such, and believes that it can exist, in and for itself, without 'things'"
Suprematist-inspired collage... focused on basic geometric forms, such as circles, squares, lines, and rectangles, painted in a limited range of colors.
Contemporary text-based design.
Contemporary art: inspired by graphic design, street art (graffiti), and text design.
These can be autobiographical, thematic, propagandistic, support a cause, or be purely visual.
Learning objectives
* understand that existing images can be, and have been, used to create new ideas once their environment changes.
* understand the compositional relationship between figure, foreground, and background (art element SPACE, design principle EMPHASIS...)
* these should have some visual order; that is, not be completely jumbled and shambolic.
Process Suggestions
To create the background, consider selecting pages that did not have excessive text, people, or animal images, just big blocks of color such as a landscape. Consider keeping the background simple so that the figures will contrast once they are glued on top. It is not necessary to cut the background to fit the paper backing.
As you begin to arrange and organize your cutout foreground images, think about creating a distinctive foreground that relates to the background (or not... think juxtaposition), but does not get lost or hidden in it.
While the compiled images may appear realistic in some ways, you are encouraged to think of surrealist art as an exaggeration of the truth, though still based on the truth. If stumped, think of communicating an idea, a story, or a comical version of reality; try creating a fantasy animal from a variety of other animals; there is no wrong approach to the assignment short of not doing it.
These are relatively simple yet effective collages. Take a look if you are interested