Page 15 - Studio International - December1996

could be made use of, contradicting the in any way be subdivided into component
utility of those household items which are parts, assemblages, as collages in three
commonplace enough to cause surprise dimensions, depend on the very opposite.
when placed on the more elevated level of Whether in relief or in the round, they
objects for spiritual use. His boxes with rope, operate on the basis of relating elements
metronomes, sealed bottles containing metal which under normal circumstances do not
•
balls, pipes and other items are characterized belong together. These elements are placed
by a sense of mystery and often sentiment- in a different context—in a new amalgam,
ality, stressed further by the fastidious way full of contradictions, which utilizes the
in which they are presented. What we all lack associations that various objects evoke, as
(1962) is an association between a clay pipe well as their formal qualities. Assemblage
on a small stand, surmounted by a glass
includes junk sculpture, Rauschenberg's
ball. It is a poetic object and the words combines, Oldenburg's environments, Jim
written on the pipe's stem not only tell us Dine's outfits, and John Latham's books.
what the object is about— they also suggest Pioneers are Joseph Cornell and Kurt
the way in which it should be looked at. Schwitters. Unlike object-making—a poetic,
The physical aspect of this work may seem myth-making process of transformation,
subordinate to the idea about this sort of devaluation and elevation to a new status—
relationship of forms and words—the assemblage is a technique. As such it has so
reproduction of this piece conveys the far implied an inherently expressionist
message nearly as accurately as the actual ordering of things; with images growing
work. The emotional response of the viewer and disappearing, allowed to emerge and
is based on the association of ideas provoked to be recognized and later buried. It is as
by the object rather than the physical if the various items that go to make up an
relationship of a white clay form and a glass assemblage passed through a period of
sphere. This does not imply the arbitrariness brainwashing, until the entire complex is
of formal relationships in Man Ray's work, allowed to emerge as a sculpture. Assemblage
but it suggests that the idea expressed in is rarely geometric or totally abstract, or
the work takes precedence. This is yet even non-referential. The term was first
another aspect which serves to separate used in 1961 with The Art of Assemblage
objects of this type from assemblage and exhibition at the MUSEUM OF MODERN ART in
from structures, with the importance of New York. The exhibition included a great
pure formal relationships inevitably variety of works ranging from Burri's sack
increasing in that order. collages and Cesar's crushed motors to
The supremacy of the idea over the actual Marisol's groups of figures and George
physical reality of the object is relevant to Brecht's Repository—a veritable compendium
Duchamp's 'ready mades', the uniqueness of memorabilia of a sportsman. The
of which he himself rejected when he started meaningfulness of an assemblage is the
signing numerous shovels, bicycle wheels result of a sum total of relationships of demonstrate the measure of ambition and
and bottle racks nearly fifty years after incongruous components each loaded with the sort of values the artist wishes to
endorsing for the first time these very items the significance of its own past. The com- associate himself with. The probability of
as unique works of art. This also applies to plexity implied in this process suggests that seriousness of content according to the
Warhol's soup cans and packages, where the the work at its best will operate on a number artistic means used cannot be assessed, but
idea of recreating a common object as a of levels simultaneously. It may seem that one can say that certain idioms are more
work of art is more significant than each of this is true of any work of art of a certain accessible and more readily effective than
the many identical tins and packs he quality—yet this is not so. There are very others—this is true of most painting under
produces. few abstract paintings, for instance, which the respective banners of Post-Painterly
Objects such as those by Man Ray have a engage the entire range of the viewer's Abstraction and Op Art.
certain privacy of scale and concept, and possible responses, and which will directly each art idiom carries with it its own
this is also true of those surrealist objects by appeal to memory, intellect, associative problems and idiosyncracies, but the
Marcel Jean, Tanguy, Brauner, as well as, powers, emotion, and the senses. Most multifaceted dimensions in assemblage
more recently, the various products of the paintings in the range of Op Art, for provoke more polemic and suggest more
Fluxus Group. instance, appeal primarily to the latter. potential than the private world of object
Whereas the character of the objects is What comes to mind is that if one employs making and the architecturally evocative
based on the integral unity, which cannot a language which is loaded, this stands to structures.

and other journals, and frequently takes part in radic London (1936) and for the Guernica exhibition (1938), Acknowledgements We wish to thank Oyvind Fahl-
programmes connected with the arts. His publica- and organized the Tate Gallery retrospectives of strom, Ulf Linde and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm,
tions include a monograph on Soutine. Picasso, Max Ernst, and Miró. for permission to publish articles on Claes Oldenburg;
Oyvind Fahlström's article was first published in the
F. N. Souza, the painter, was born in Goa in 1924. He Öyvind Fahlström, leading Swedish artist and catalogue to the Oldenburg exhibition at the Museum,
is the author of Words and Lines, and his work was writer, was born in 1928. Since 1961 he has lived in the as was one of Ulf Linde's articles. We also wish to
the subject of a monograph by Edwin Mullins. U.S.A. He represented Sweden at the 1966 Venice thank the following for the loan of blocks: Faber and
Biennale. Faber; Thames and Hudson; Ravi Kumar; White-
Sir Roland Penrose, chairman of the I.C.A., was chapel Art Gallery; Marlborough Fine Arts.
responsible for the first Surrealist exhibition held in Ulf Linde, the Swedish critic, has been art critic of
Dagens Nyheter since 1956.