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Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Other graphic art forms
Elza Adamowicz presents an analysis of surrealist collage, both as
a technique of cutting and pasting ready made material, and as a
subversive and creative strategy. She considers verbal collage,
pictorial collage, and the hybrids they generate, and discusses the
works of Max Ernst and Andre Breton, as well as those of Aragon,
Brunius, Eluard, Hugnet, Magritte, Peret, Styrsky and others.
Focusing on the recycling of art-historical icons, the parodic
reworking of narrative cliches, the concept of defamiliarisation of
the banal, or the relations between part bodies and totalities, she
offers close readings of individual collages, and links specific
aspects of collage practice to central issues of surrealist
aesthetic and political thought. Throughout this well illustrated
study Adamowicz confronts the 'monstrous' nature of collage,
grounded on excess and composed of irretrievable fragments and
hovering signs.
In The City as Subject, Carolyn S. Loeb examines distinctive bodies
of public art in Berlin: legal and illegal murals painted in West
Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, post-reunification public
sculptures, and images and sites from the street art scene. Her
careful analyses show how these developed new architectural and
spatial vocabularies that drew on the city’s infrastructure and
daily urban experience. These works challenged mainstream urban
development practices and engaged with citizen activism and with a
wider civic discourse about what a city can be. Loeb extends this
urban focus to her examination of the extensive outdoor
installation of the Berlin Wall Memorial and its mandate to
represent the history of the city’s division. She studies its
surrounding neighborhoods to show that, while the Memorial adopts
many of the urban-oriented vocabularies established by the earlier
works of public art she examines, it truncates the story of urban
division, which stretches beyond the Wall’s existence. Loeb
suggests that, by embracing more multi-vocal perspectives, the
Memorial could encourage the kind of participatory and
heterogeneous construction of the city championed by the earlier
works of public art.
Street-cool visual artist-cum-nightlife guru, Andre Saraiva, whose
life dovetails into graffiti subculture, chic jet-setting, and the
fashion world, presents an autobiographical visual diary of sorts,
a revealing window into the worlds he inhabits. Chances are that
while you ve been strolling through the streets of Paris, London,
New York, or Los Angeles, you may have caught a glimpse of Saraiva
s signature graffiti of Mr. A on a random street wall. Or you may
have seen him in the Banksy film, Exit Through the Gift Shop; spied
him in the front rows of the Paris Fashion Week shows; or seen him
at one of his many chic nightclubs. Graffiti Life is a
never-before-seen look at the artist s many spheres through which
he effortlessly moves: street culture, contemporary art, graphic
design, photography, fashion, and nightlife. This visual journey is
an interactive and striking object itself, with a vibrant pink
cloth cover, Saraiva s distinctive handwriting in foil, and seven
pop-ups he designed. It follows Saraiva s art/life trajectory, and
includes his Instagram-worthy tags on the streets of Paris;
countless silk-screened posters; paintings and sculpture; creative
collaborations with Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Colette, and more.
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