I’m keen on art history to quench a dry spell. Here’s my suggestion to a collage artist in a slump.
• Browse modern art movements that have influenced collage: cubism, dada, constructivism, expressionism, surrealism, pop art.
• Relax and study the seminal masters of the medium: Cornell, Paolozzi, Höch, Hausmann, Schwitters.
• Then go to your “morgue” of images, textures, ephemera, and found material: group various ingredients into piles, responding quickly, intuitively, and without conscious thought for composition or symbolic associations.
• Before you know it, you’ll have more ideas and embryonic projects than you can immediately deal with. React first to the ones that won’t be denied. With a bit of luck, a new series will emerge.
Tatlin at Home
by Raoul Hausmann
1920