COLLAGES
El Cuadro en el Ojo
Gonzalo Vélez
Uno Mas Uno, 1991
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A plastic form of expression that essentially parts of removing images from their original context and to combine them in another space in which its significance may change, it's called collage. The interaction between the images that the collagist chooses for his work generates a group of elements giving as a result something new and different from the purpose they initially had. The intention is fun and conceptual; a recycling and creative exercise.
I will talk about the Collage exposition displayed these days at the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo. I have to be strict with the criticism, because with the abundance of resources that this museum has, it is terrible to see that things don't work. First I'd mention the "safety measures", I guess that's what they are. It is forbidden to walk around with knifes, bottles with acids or bombs, I understand. But if you have a book, a small book like the one I was carrying, or a pen, even if you don't write, some guard in a suit at the entrance will ask you to leave it in the cloakroom. So I did in order to avoid a discussion. I began my tour, with my pen in my hand, when after a while, another guard stands a few centimeters from my nose and kindly tells me to go back to the cloakroom to exchange my pen for a pencil, because pens, even those that you can buy outside the subway station, like mine, are forbidden.
But it's not just about these Cerberus stare at the visitors while they try to observe paintings in peace, as if they were maniac work of art destroyer. Also, in this place it is common that the museography is kind of careless in the details, like the tour, the sample reading and the lighting. In the particular case of this exhibition, there are aspects that aren't very clear: one would think that the collage is anything that the artist pastes on a canvas or paper; besides that collage is mentioned as a technique, as if it was oil or engraving. And no. On the other hand, there is too much work, and when it is not stored chronologically, or by theme, or nationality, or artistic trend, the tour turns out to be quite exhausting.
Among all, there are good pieces and great artists: Warhol, Hockney, Lichtenstein, Beyus, Max Ernst, Jasper Jones, Rauschemberg and others: are all these collages? Yes, at least those of Remedios Varo, Agusín Lazo or Alberto Gironella, for example.
In regard to this, there is also work by Adolfo Patiño, Miguel Ventura, Roberto Turnbull, Eric del Castillo, Armando Cristeto and Karina Morales, respectively.
I think it is very positive that they included work from young Mexican artists in this exhibition.
From these, the ones I preferred were: Ventura's, which consists on an infinity of cropped words from a 11 point typography, each word crossed out and carefully placed one next to the other until covering a substantial surface, in an insane work; Del Castillo's, the tiniest format of the sample, around 20 x 10 centimeters, which is the only one playing with external planes, abandoning both dimensions; and Morales', with a topographic puzzle of a collage with pictures, texts and other images, as an angel on an LP in a phonograph. I was about to suggest them to install