The ends of collage

Abstract

The title 'The Ends of Collage', refers both literally and metaphorically to the place where collage fulfils its calling at the ends or edges of pictures and fragments, where separate worlds come together or break apart from one another. But it also suggests an historical paradigm, where collage is considered as a medium that existed in the so called "age of mechanical reproduction" and has now been overcome by the new logic of the digital age. The book attempts to survey different approaches to- and definitions of collage and the role of this medium in two crucial historical moments: its emergence in the early decades of the 20th century, and the introduction of digital media during the postmodern moment of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Contents

Foreword : why collage now? -- The ends of collage / Yuval Etgar -- The forerunners / Herta Wescher -- Free-word poetry / Christine Poggi -- Collage / Clement Greenberg -- Towards a definition of Surrealist collage / Elza Adamowicz -- The challenge to painting / Louis Aragon -- Beyond painting / Max Ernst -- Collages / Jean (Hans) Arp -- On collage / Hannah Höch -- From detail to fragment : décollage affichiste / Benjamin H. D. Buchloch -- The cutting edge / Brandon Taylor -- Cutting and framing / John Stezaker -- Twelve fragments to take off (in 40,000 signs) / Groupe µ -- The allegorical impulse : toward a theory of postmodernism / Craig Owens -- Pictures / Douglas Crimp -- Practicing without a license / Richard Prince -- Statement / Sherrie Levine -- Image simulations, computer manipulations : some considerations / Martha Rosler -- On edge / Ali Smith.