The Broken Page

Collage:  A common basic technique used for hundreds of years that made its way back in to the spotlight when the term was coined in the early 20^th century. At first it revolved around mixing different paper materials on to a surface.  The term collage comes from the French word coller, which means glue, and the process of collage entails gluing something on to something else. 

Hannah Höch Meine Hausspruche

To Dadaists, collages served as a visual diary of the artist who pasted together the different elements.  Being known for challenging the techniques of the time and the basic outline they gave, the Dada artists took collage to the next level, creating more abstraction above anything else.  The artists sought out multiple different mediums to paste juxtaposed.  They brought every day items like ticket stubs, plastic, magazine pieces, and some even just picked up a piece of trash and pasted it on as the finishing touch. 

The collage was not simply just about these different items that covered the support, but also about the creation; the cutting, tearing, pasting, folding, writing on, picking up, and scratching of each component of the collage. 

This technique found its way in to every faction of Dada that is studied, and was called upon in art movements post-Dada, mostly in Surrealism which just barely overlaps the end of the Dada movement.  

Collage serves as a technique that is still used, rather easily for that matter, as projects for people of all ages.  It is still a way for us to express ourselves through different mediums and allow our inner artist to encounter a new process of creation.  Taking magazines, newspapers, and miscellaneous items from my desk, I attempted to paste together the scraps I have ripped, torn out, and spilled on since I started this study of collage.

Although I put every piece I have collected on to the back of this folder I found in my room, I view it as an unfinished diary of the past three months in the world.

Rashel Untitled 104