John Whiteley's The Art Of Assemblages

As the popular art subjects become more and more used up, artists search for other ways to express antiquated ideas. They begin carving and painting roses onto vases. ("renews/ itself in metal or porcelain" (line 8)) Ironically, while this new format originated from the overuse of the subject, this simple overuse also opened a gateway for more

Thousands of years ago, before artists’ work fell into the category and style of art that existed during their time period, art was portrayed mostly through carved slabs or marble or stone. Art has existed since years before the Common Era and date all the way back to prehistory. It has helped historians and scientists understand the lifestyles in which past civilizations had followed. In Ancient Rome and Greece, for example, many artists sculpted religious figures in accordance to their polytheistic, mythological beliefs. Almost every artist, if not all, of these sculptures remains unknown to this day but their work lives on to inspire others. One work in particular that

Case Study: The use of assemblage and the found object in historical and contemporary art practice.

Many times people have used discarded items for their art. Patchwork quilts are created from scraps, rags, and remnants that a person finds in the trash. Quilters then combine the trash to make a new, beautiful pattern. In New York, some artists created a sculpture garden and performance space out of a gas station. They turn abandoned cars and other urban debris into a community work of art that continues to grow. (Miller 3) Famous artist Pablo Picasso collected all kinds of discarded items he found and created sculptures. One of his most famous sculptures was Bull’s Head. Bull’s Head created in 1942, is made from a bicycle seat and handlebars cast in bronze. (Miller 5) Art can be created from discarded items and possibly even nature.

People hold on to pieces of jewelry, furniture, and other symbolic collectables that is passed through generations. These things can remind a person of a loved one that is seen as being priceless.

With works in every known medium, from every part of the world, throughout all points in history, exploring the vast collection of the Museum of Modern Art was an overwhelming experience. The objects in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts are an important historical collection, reflecting the development of a number of art forms in Western Europe. The department's holdings covered sculpture in many sizes, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, jewelry, and tapestries. The gallery attracted my appreciation of the realistic qualities of the human body often portrayed in sculpture.

Objects have a powerful influence in our lives. Upon looking around at all my possessions, one pair of antique Everlasting leather boxing gloves, sewn with black thread, with half a glove torn off, brought back a memory in which changed the way people viewed me.

Gersh-Nesic (n.d.) claims that “The world was changing rapidly and some artists wanted their work to be about their contemporary environment—about themselves and their own perceptions of life;” however, it is in this lattermost portion of her statement –

In the century since the Arts and Crafts movement first flourished, the Providence Art Club and the Fleur de Lys Studio have undergone inevitable change, melding different and newer ideas about art and craftsmanship. Still, there are many examples of the movement’s objects to observe within both buildings. While Arts and Crafts reformers generally tried to create lasting works, their love of natural materials sometimes meant that it was not as easy for the pieces to stand the test of time. As objects decayed, styles changed, and firecodes were updated, so have the Providence Art Club and Fleur de Lys Studio. One object that continues to shine throughout all this time is the inglenook in the Fleur de Lys Studio. The building is currently used

Assemblage was not created by a single individual. Instead, the trend became popular in the early 1950s through a series of artists. Assemblage achieved its most widespread popularity around the time period in which Jean Dubuffet developed an exhibit of collages of butterfly wings, known as assemblages d’empreintes. Stating that this was the beginning of the assemblage movement, however, is inaccurate. Alongside Dubuffet, there were Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso; not only were these prominent artists allowing the movement to flourish, but as the movement spread, the influencing artists of the past received more and more recognition. Though artists such as Duchamp and Picasso practiced a unique type of assemblage artwork, the works of many other artists that practiced the art form long before them inspired thousands of others to create assemblage art and spread the specific message of

(Narration) It sits there on a shelf, shoved away into a drawer, or even neatly wrapped and sat alone in a box. Has it been in the family for a lifetime? Or has it simply just been in an event that cannot be forgotten. But it will remain where it is. It does not have say where it belongs, or even how it is viewed, if it even can be viewed anymore. The purpose of this item still remaining is known to few, but is genuinely known by one. The owner of this item cherishes it dearly as if he or she were traveling back to the day they associate that item with. Everyone has at least one item that means more to them than just some materials thrown together to craft an overpriced product. But we owners don’t care about the condition it is in, nor do we care about how much the item was. The fact of the matter is that it means more to us in some form.

Arthur Danto, influential art critic, found Warhol’s Brillo boxes intriguing and wrote about them in an essay ‘Beyond the Brillo Box’.  In it, he surmised that it was Warhol that made these boxes anything more than what they were.  Calling them “pretty good pieces of carpentry” Danto speaks about them being indistinguishable from commercial brillo boxes, the only difference in them is the declaration from Warhol that they are art. Warhol himself, was a believer that anything an artist did was art, once they had become an artist.

When one considers the term “Art Nouveau,” what comes to mind most immediately is “images of a European-wide invasion [characterized] by the restless dynamism of organic form”(Silverman 1). For me it is usually the work of Alphonse Mucha– his mysterious women surrounded by the beauties of nature. Often my Art Nouveau fantasies take shape in the odd fungal-shaped stained-glass lamps of Tiffany. Or sometimes they surface as the romantic Parisian posters I’ve seen at Pier One, advertising champagne or cats noir or bicycles or the like. But no matter what ones notion may be of what Art Nouveau looks like, there is a feeling that accompanies it that is at the heart of the style’s appeal. It is difficult to define or describe what

The past was a souvenir because once people realized that certain traditions could be changed, they had no reason to believe those traditions had to be the standard. Like a souvenir, the scene and the script became only a reminder of where people had been, it has no practical use for the present. Once people conceived of a new stage, a new script, a new way of thinking, it had to be experimented with. They valued experimentation, because they did not have a required standard. They valued finding

Looking at the broad historical perspective, people have been considering clothing as an elemental demand that cannot be replaced in human life. Clothes have become a typical topic for not only researchers but also students. That was the reason why I had a trip to a museum of Te Manawa and saw many exhibits there about wearable arts. At the first sight I stepped into the arts area, I started to wonder what the artists created these costumes for. I stopped by an exhibit, called “The Reflection On Time”, which impressed me the most. Wearing a hooded jacket with a jean, I was almost overwhelmed with its magnificence. It was such a pellucid collection of plastics that you can see through and observe every line of the model statue. It brought