Collage shortcuts

The following snapshots from the making of this collage seem to me quite interesting, as there were many transformations before the final picture. I experienced it like a fight (about 1.30hs without lifting my head from the desk), and the outcome illustrates it somewhere. Enjoy!








For the bigger picture of Sumo

I must confess, my life is desperately eventless these days. Nothing romanesque or romantic. Just plain days.After two weeks spent in our house, enjoying my spaceous studio, gardening, leisuring in the sun, playing golf on a course or in our garden, I am just fine. The weather is so beautiful, so warm, that I want to be outside, not at my desk. But still, I make my daily collage. Those are not banals, they're getting weirder every day. Banality is not in my brain. Maybe there's a relationship between banality and collage? But no, in the past, they were associated with big interior revolutions. So there must be something going on, a sort of automatic pilot for collage. But how does it know its route? Maybe all the inspiration comes from my childhood. When I am making greedy mouthes with bare teeth for ex., my mind gives me a hint to fairy tales (Grimm of course), scary looking people, or just imaginary monsters that made me hide my feet and hands under the blanket at night. There were no special events going on neither, but in my head...

I just have achieved my 2000th collage and put on my web site. Frankly, I am really surprised by this number, counting the last 50 in "years". Now I am in 2001 already, getting closer and closer to 2009. How many will I be able to make in the future. Can I maintain the quality I am after? When I was young I dreamt of one single masterpiece, bringing me glory and wealth. And there I am, with my A4 sheets, which are fragile, to be handled with care, away from direct sunlight (I refuse to varnish them - they would become a painting). But I love them all. And if I can, I'll go for another thousand.

I am working on babies because there are suddenly so many pictures of happy couples with new born children. Sometimes, I suspect them of just posing for the camera , like that women with an octuple breed.
And I remember what one of my students - who was living alone in a flat while her mother was living abroad - told me about it: "It's just while we are young that they are so good parents, when we are getting older, they abandon us." I feel anyway that there is too much baby care, too much focus. And when the child doesn't behave corresponding to what he got from his parents ("everything" they get Ritalin.
Have a look on my site from no.1991 to 1994

Dear Berni,
As I was looking at your collection of collages from the sixties-seventies, I felt that you have made some progress since. Indeed, your former works are illustrative- narrative or a mere patchwork – they seem quite naïve to me I must say.
I understand much better some negative reactions from professionals that you received so badly then: they surely saw immediately the shortcomings, whereas you were blind to them. Because you were sure making some great art. You were stuck in illusion about yourself and your works. I know I can tell you that rather crudely because it’s remote in the past.
I think that this a real chance for you to get rid of an erroneous conception of yourself and your artistic biography. In fact you were born to your own style in 1999 and all the rest is a long and difficult way to it. And a different attitude regarding your work: always as important as ever, but more relaxed and more lucid. Traces of your ancient “style” subsist in several of your paintings with collage: they resemble too much to your old style by their illustrative manner – you should leave painting and concentrate on collage, at least for some time. And, please, go to the attic and discard the old rubbish, it makes no good keeping those unworthy paintings.
Sincerely yours
Inreb

Making some order in my slides, I found some pictures of my collages from the sixties and seventies which are all lost. Some of them, I remember, were made with authentic documents I inherited after my father's death in 1974. The one I want to talk about is an enquiry sent by the German Gestapo, the secret policy of the Third Reich:
In fact they wanted to talk about my mother. And the problems began. I mixed the document with the cut out silhouette of an SS officer through which you can see some architecture. The inhuman character of the institution is meant to be demonstrated by this artifice. 35 years after I must say that I wouldn't handle the subject in the same way, but I still feel the sincerity in it. Still there is some ambiguity between the silhouette and the main character of the collage: my father. He had been a German officer in world war I, and one of the rare righteous during the Nazi period, saving his family and several people from deportation and death. So the collage is more about the persecutors than about the heroes, a comprehensible sin of a descendant of a family that has suffered a lot during those times. Today I feel more about building a monument to the glory of those who dared/chose to resist.

I am currently participating at an exhibition in Longview Museum of Fine Arts Texas. The title of the exhibition proposed by Cecil Touchon is Under Influence. My contribution, as you can see is quite disrespectful because I think that many (famous) painters painted just for their living, often without real commitment. Of course I could have chosen another collage that pays homage to Picasso for ex., but this is quite evident in my eyes as the forerunners or great defunct masters don't deserve my tribute and I don't want to glorify myself with their prestige. Ad my personal trait is a certain taste for mockery. I just can't see art as a kind of modern religion, I see it more as a road to perfection.
And to close this post, a Picasso-inspired collage.

Sometimes I am on an erotic collage and as I show some on my website, here is my position.
Looking at erotic pictures has always been quite a pleasure for me, at least since puberty. Making an erotic picture is quite enjoyable even now, but not my primary goal at all. I am after form and expression through it. Most erotic works seem all too conventional to me, and erotism need new stimuli. A recent collage I'd qualify as erotic shows a girl.

Why does it seem erotic to me? Well there are some stereotypes like the eyes looking at you, a bare breast, the gesture of undressing, as in so many ads. Erotism comes here from a promise, from an extrapolation of the situation.
This is different from porn, where the sexual act is crudely shown. No art in my eyes. The only collages where I did so were taken from japanese prints where the scene is despicted in a refined manner. Anyway, cinema has - logically - taken over still pictures. But let's go back to my collage. Looking at it, I feel that there is some mystery in it. And that is it what turns me on - as in my other collages. Because I always want to surprise myself.

Another collage. I have been working a little on manipulation in collage 1971 and came by chance to the theme of the scapegoat. First I saw the ropes and the rest followed quite easily. The victim is a theme I treated several times in painting and collage. Surely because my family has been persecuted by the Nazis and the fundamental question about it: why?

The link to the collage.

I try to work every day, to make at least one collage, that’s my rule. It is evident that I can’t hold this rhythm exactly, but I keep it as my stake. Even if I don’t feel like it, I just move some bits of paper on a sheet – in order to keep in touch. This discipline is very hard to initialize, but after some time, it becomes a routine. Maybe it is easier for me now that I am older. When I was young, I worked like a volcano – sleeping mostly with sudden violent outbursts. I didn’t like the intermezzi, they scared me, I used to question myself filled with doubt. Creative outbursts are very strong experiences and I love them when they occur. But I have tried to discipline myself in order to produce a constant flow of pictures. And the outburst? They still occur when I am on a collage that stands out from the others. Yesterday, when I was awaiting the verdict of my doctor, I couldn’t sit down and make a collage. So I moved pieces of paper, my small desk is now in a mess, I go on moving bits of paper here and there, nothing fabulous happens, so I’ll publish a photo of this mess.

Well, 2 hours later, I made it! But not with the pictures on my desk... A sudden outburst.

The link to the bigger picture.