Infinite Possibility II: Imagination & Creation

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                                                                    Juror Statement

“We live in an age of mixed-media.

In a time in which a smart phone stands ready in every pocket or bag, there is no longer a division between digital and physical spaces. Music can be accessed and played anywhere. Images are created and shared with the push of a few buttons. Divisions have been erased. High and low culture are consistently blended. Each moment is ripe with infinite possibilities. In this spirit, today’s artists have moved both conceptually and physically beyond the narrow confines of traditional media or genres, drawing from and mixing together an endless variety of available material.

It was not surprising, therefore, to see an overwhelming amount of collage and mixed-media art submitted for this exhibition. Whether glued, constructed, montaged, mixed, or appropriated, the wide variety of material and media utilized to create the works on display is a testament to the prominence of collage in our contemporary context.

Collage first emerged as an artist approach in the 20^th century. The Cubist experiments of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque audaciously mixed elements of high and low culture to break down traditional artistic ideologies. Notably, critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire declared that this artistic approach was “steeped in humanity.” In other words, it engaged directly with contemporary objects and contemporary thought. Followed quickly by the assemblages of Marcel Duchamp, and the appropriation of Pop Artists, all cultural material was fair game in the creation of art by mid-century. “Collage is the twentieth century’s greatest innovation,” noted famed artist Robert Motherwell.

The presence of collage has only increased in the 21^st century. Today, the endlessly multiplying and expanding terrain of the internet has broadened this artistic horizon.  Online, collage is the primary means of communication.  A collection of social media posts—words, photographs, links, reposts and retweets—is widely recognized as a statement of who you are. Your online presence is a carefully curated and collaged self-portrait. Fragmentation, fracture, sampling, appropriation, and layering are all fundamental concepts that define both the field of collage and digital media. As viewers have become fluent in the language of collage, artists have pushed the approach further. “To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist,” noted writer Samuel Beckett.

The thirteen artists featured in this exhibition have embraced the form of collage and mixed media in order to embrace the mess of contemporary society and to express a variety of viewpoints. Collage is a medium that by definition incorporates fragments and deals with opposing tensions, broken images, hidden desires, and collective myths. Layering imagery, cultural commentary, and a wide variety of materials, the works of art on display explore themes of ancestry, nature, consumerism, and memory.  Collage is more relevant today than ever, not only as a rich formal language, but also as a mode of perception. The innumerable combinations of material offer infinite possibility, bound only by an artist’s imagination.”

Lisa Volpe, Associate Curator of Photography at MFAH