Collage: The Heide Collection

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©Heide MoMA 2013 Educational use only Page 1 of 12

Collage: The Heide Collection Exhibition dates: 24 April – 20 October 2013 Venue: Heide II Curator: Lesley Harding

‘Collage: The Heide Collection’ Installation view, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2013 Photograph: John Brash

This Education Resource has been produced by Heide Museum of Modern Art to provide information and support school visits to the museum and as such is intended for this use only. Reproduction and communication is permitted for educational purposes only. No part of this education resource may be stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means.

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Introduction

‘Collage: The Heide Collection’ Installation view Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2013 Photograph: John Brash

The technique of creating pictures by assembling an assortment of materials has a long tradition as a domestic and decorative practice, but assumed a new importance in early twentieth-century art. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque first incorporated collage or papier collé (pasted paper) elements in their cubist compositions a century ago, in 1912. They adhered pieces of paper, photographs, found objects and ephemera—often the discarded oddments of the everyday world found beyond the studio—to the surface of their artworks. In doing so they introduced a new dimension to the lofty realm of painting, emphasising concept and process in art making, and opening up fresh possibilities for art in representing lived experience. With its potential for melding high and low culture, and pictorial illusion with real objects and materials, collage was soon adopted by surrealist, constructivist and dada artists to express the conditions and sensibilities of modern life. This exhibition of over 80 works by 30 artists is primarily drawn from the Heide Collection, while also including collages on loan from contemporary artists. It considers collage as both a method and a theoretical device in Australian art from the late 1930s to the present time. Works range from the early and little known experiments of Heide protégé Sidney Nolan to the irreverent, bowerbird-inspired collages of the Annandale Imitation Realists; from the erotic surrealist mindscapes of James Gleeson to Ken Reinhard's Pop Art tableaus. Also featured are more recent works where artists have extended the principles of papier collé by making digital and moving-image collages, such as the spliced portrait photographs of Daniel Crooks and David Rosetsky, the digitised photomontages of Helen Johnson, and a video by Damiano Bertoli in which different historical moments co-exist via collage.

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Mike Brown Glub, Glub, Glub 1968–82 mixed media on composition board 106.5 x 106.5 x 25.5 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art Purchased from John and Sunday Reed 1980

Avant-garde artist Mike Brown was inspired by the social and political times in which he lived. His wild and exciting artworks referenced everything from pop lyrics and garbage to the ideas of the Dada art movement. Mike Brown worked across a huge range of media and created sculptures, paintings, stencils and collages. His creative flourishes led him to one day painting a mural across the entire dining room in the Heide I house; a small patch on the floor is the only part that remains. Mike Brown’s artworks were statements about how he felt about his world—they are his reactions and reflections, and sometimes provocations. Look very carefully at this work.

How has Mike Brown created depth and spatial shifts in this artwork? What materials has he used to do this?

Try making your own collage utilising this technique.

Where would you source material from that reflected your personal life experience?

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Daniel Crooks Portrait #2 (Chris), 2007 lambda photographic print 102 cm x 102cm Heide Museum of Modern Art Purchased with funds from the Robert Salzer Foundation 2012

Portrait #2 (Chris) forms part of Daniel Crooks’s ‘Time Slice’ project (1999–), a series of moving image works and prints made using digital collage techniques. This involves digitally slicing images then reassembling them sequentially, across the screen or picture plane, to create rhythmic and spatial effects through which Crooks seeks to explore ideas and themes related to our understandings of time and motion. Look carefully at this image.

What objects do you notice around the figure in this work? What might this indicate to us, as viewers of the artwork about this person? His personality or character?

What is the figure wearing? What might his clothing represent? Can we be certain?

Do you think this portrait really tells us very much about this man or his identity? Try to explain why.

Do you think this digital print challenges any preconceptions we might have about what collage is?

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Gareth Sansom He Once was a Flyer 1965 oil, enamel, collage and pencil on composition board 152.2 x 136.8 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art Gift of Craig and Connie Kimberley 2002

Gareth Sansom created his collage with four different materials.

List each of the materials.

Can you find an artwork in the exhibition that is created from more materials than this? What is the title? Who is the artist? When was it created?

Why do you think in some artworks the wall text or label says ‘mixed media’? What does this art term mean?

What ideas do you think the artist is trying to convey? What do you see that makes you say that?

Describe the steps the artist may have taken to create this artwork.

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Murray Walker Screaming Child in a Push Car 1990 acrylic and collage on paper 23.2 x 16.5 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art Gift of artist 2000 A collagist since the 1980s, Murray Walker has long been alert to the creative possibilities of found materials gathered beyond the studio, and to the free and mobile imagery of popular culture. ‘I’m very much a person who works from observation and experience’, he has remarked, ‘I’m not a person who seizes style from a book’. Walker’s first collages were made from ephemera collected on the streets of Europe’s great cities, and they formed a type of diary of his travels—the artist making sense of what was around him. Over time his collages have accrued a narrative function, with various characters emerging out of the pasted elements and the images often inflected with Walker’s irreverent humour and acute observations. Honesty of materials and lack of artifice are the constant: ‘I have sought immediacy, spontaneity, often the quickest means to build a bridge to carry my feelings and thoughts across to the viewer’. Look very closely at this collage.

Where do you think the artist has sourced the materials from? What are they?

Do the materials offer us a different way to read or understand the artwork? How do they impact on your interpretation? Describe how and why.

What techniques has the artist used to apply the acrylic paint? Describe how you think the artist might have achieved this effect.

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Elizabeth Gower Prismatic 2006 (left) collage on 12 canvas panels 100 x 100 cm each Courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne Installation view Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2013 Photograph: John Brash

The first impression of Elizabeth Gower’s artwork is that is looks like a long rainbow of geometric patterns. In Heide II the artwork is installed so that it wraps around two walls. Upon closer inspection of the artwork we can see that it is created from cut paper and cardboard, some of which is from everyday items such as packaging and advertisements. Elizabeth Gower has been working with collage for many years. She often collects her collage materials from paper and cardboard that she comes across in her everyday life. Elizabeth organises her clippings into thematic groups such as similar items, colours or patterns. Elizabeth Gower uses precision and care when cutting, gluing and arranging the shapes in her collages.

What evidence can you see of this precision and care in Prismatic?

Why might it be important for Elizabeth to work this way?

Why do you think Elizabeth Gower chose to create her collages from images cut from packages and shopping catalogues?

Make your own junk mail collage.

Find some advertising materials or ‘junk mail’ and cut out some of the items.

Try grouping some of the pieces together to create a pattern.

Try arranging some to make patterns according to colour.

Construct your own collage using the clippings and create an interesting pattern or design.

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Exploring the Exhibition Using the table below, create a list of some of the different materials used in the artworks. In the second column list words that describe the visual appearance of these materials In the third column name the artwork title and artist you have referred to.

MATERIALS DESCRIBE HOW THE MATERIAL HAS BEEN APPLIED

ARTWORK TITLE and ARTIST

Cardboard Buckled, worn, bent, rippling, warped, scrubbed, decayed…

Ink Undulating, flowing, shuddering, jostling, jumping, dancing, staggering…

Paint

Paper

Wood

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Exploring the Elements

Find the best example you think there is of each element and draw them in the boxes below, you might find more than one element in an artwork or a different artwork for each one.

SHAPE as found in John Nixon’s collage TONE

TEXTURE COLOUR

SHAPE LINE

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VCE Art: Analytical Frameworks

Formal Framework Look closely at Mike Brown’s collage Glub, Glub, Glub and complete a visual analysis of formal elements of the artwork:

Describe the subject matter – what can you see?

How have the elements and principles of art been applied by the artist?

What effect has this created?

What materials has the artist used? How have the materials been utilised and applied to the artwork? How has the artwork been made? Precisely? Carefully? Roughly? Expressively? Something else?

Does this artwork remind you of any others in the exhibition? Do you think it belongs to a specific art movement? What qualities in the artwork make you associate this artwork to that art movement?

Can you see any symbols in the artwork? Is there something in this artwork that makes you wonder if it is a metaphor for something else? Do you have any ideas what it could be about?

Now that you have explored the formal elements of the artwork, how do they contribute to the meanings and messages of Glub, Glub, Glub? Use the Analytical Frameworks to construct a response to a different artwork you have seen in this exhibition.

Personal Framework Select an artwork that seems to relate to an artist’s personal life history.

What evidence in the artwork reflects aspects of the artist’s life or ideas?

Are there any symbols that might reflect the artist’s personality?

What is your personal response to this artwork?

Cultural Framework Select an artwork that appears to represent a particular time period or societal concern.

What aspects (subject matter, techniques) of the artwork reflect the culture in which it was made?

Are there any cultural symbols used in the artwork?

How does the social, political context in which the work was made contribute to its meaning?

How does the intention of the artist differ from your view?

What meaning did the artist give to the work? Are you interpreting it in the way that was intended? You may have to further research these ideas.

Contemporary Framework Select a recently created artwork in this exhibition.

When was this artwork produced?

Would it be considered Post Modern? Contemporary?

Does the artwork challenge traditional understandings of art?

How does the artist do this? Parody? Satire? Irony?

What visual evidence supports these ideas?

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VCE Studio Art

Conservation and Preservation See the Inside the Museum education resource at heide.com.au/education/resources Consider the lighting and temperature:

How are the artworks lit in the exhibition?

Why do you think the blinds are down in the Heide II galleries?

Many of the collages are works on paper, what LUX should they be displayed under?

What is ‘relative humidity’?

How is the climate being controlled in the exhibition space?

What else do you think is keeping the artworks on display safe?

Communication Look at the Heide website, Facebook or Twitter pages, Art Almanac, Art Guide, newspaper advertising or café posters to see how Heide has been promoted and publicised.

How is information about Heide and this exhibition presented and promoted to the general public?

Heide Museum of Modern Art is a public art gallery. What does this mean and how does Heide differ to a commercial gallery, artist-run initiative or curated online exhibition spaces?

Curatorial decisions Look at how the artworks have been displayed and hung in Heide II.

Can you notice any possible themes emerging in groupings or artworks?

What sorts of considerations did the curator Lesley Harding need to take into account when choosing where to display art works? Do you think that any unusual choices have been made?

Has the building design or architecture impacted upon choices and decisions the curator has made? Considering that the majority of artworks on display are from the Heide Collection, and some that are on loan.

Why do you consider the curator would want to select artworks from outside the Heide Collection for this exhibition?

Where would you find information about the ownership of an artwork? There are two different ways works come into the Heide Collection: artworks are donated or purchased.

Describe the difference between donated and purchased?

Why do you think an organization or person (such as an artist or collector) want to donate works to a public institution like Heide?

http://www.heide.com.au/education/resources/

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Heide Education Heide offers a range of education programs that draw on its unique mix of exhibitions, architecture and landscape to provide a rich learning experience that goes beyond the classroom. An education focussed visit to Heide Museum of Modern Art:

provides a stimulating environment which helps to put learning into context, and promotes an understanding and appreciation of our rich, cultural heritage

encourages motivation, by stirring curiosity and developing an intrinsic fascination for art that can only be satisfied by firsthand experience

supports students to make cross-curricular links between different subject areas

greatly benefits students who learn best through kinaesthetic activities

nurtures creativity and enables social learning

provides learning through experience and interaction which encourages students to build on prior expectations and beliefs to create new realities

is a cultural experience that all students can enjoy Looking at original works of art with a suitably trained educator also encourages the development of the following skills:

literacy: by encouraging discussion and extending vocabulary

observation: by focusing concentration on detail

critical thinking: by demanding questions and informed conclusions

reflection: by considering rationales behind thinking processes All education programming and resources at Heide align with the VELS curriculum frameworks and VCE Study Designs. Further information about curriculum links is available at heide.com.au/education/school-visits/curriculum-links/ Teacher Professional Development Heide offers a range of professional development programs for teachers of all year levels, including lectures, guided tours and workshops. Programs are designed to meet the VIT Standards of Professional Practice and Principles for Effective Professional Learning. Bookings Bookings are essential for all programs. For more information or a booking form visit heide.com.au/education/school-visits/or contact Heide Education: (03) 9850 1500 [email protected]

Teachers are encouraged to visit Heide prior to a booked school visit (complimentary ticket available) to familiarise themselves with the exhibitions and facilities.

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Documents

Collage: The Heide Collection