Shinique Smith, “Juba,” 2024, acrylic, ink and collage, 28″ x 14″ x 3″/Photo: moniquemeloche gallery
Collage is quite possibly the most open-ended technique to gain commercial success in the art world. Its premise is simple: find some objects of visual interest (usually of disparate origins) and arrange them in such a way that the parts constitute a new and compelling whole. Yet in practice, collage art’s place within wider art history is rather narrow: collages that achieve prominence within the art world are two-dimensional and seldom consulted for more than social commentary. Run through a list of famous collage artists and the subject they’ve come to be known for if you don’t believe me: Hannah Höch had anti-Nazism, Richard Hamilton his cultural capitalism, Barbara Kruger her militant feminism… the list goes on. Something about our current cultural moment has prevented these bricoleurs from establishing themselves as aestheticians, relegating them to mere cultural historians. This restrictive status quo is currently being disrupted at moniquemeloche, where “Collage Culture” attempts to showcase the medium’s full possibilities.
Mickalene Thomas, “Nus Exotiques #1,” 2022, color photograph, mixed media paper, and rhinestones on hot press paper mounted on dibond, 44 3/8″ x 44 3/4″ x 2 3/4″/Photo: moniquemeloche gallery
First to catch my eye were the works of Shinique Smith, whose recent solo show at moniquemeloche highlighted her abstract paintings. In the works currently on view, however, Smith has eschewed the paintbrush and canvas for assemblages of differently-patterned fabrics. While the formal characteristics of this output don’t deviate significantly from most abstract paintings, they convey a fundamentally different sensation to the viewer: rather than revealing themselves as elaborate forms jutting out of a blank surface, Smith’s textiles comprise both surface and outward bulge. Their mechanism is not creationist—something made from nothing—but constitutive, finding arrangements of aesthetic appeal in quotidian detritus. The idea that one need not exit everyday life to discover the sublime (as abstract artists understand it) is incontrovertibly demonstrated by these works.
Lavar Munroe, “So Silent Your Whisper,” 2024, fringed newspaper, acrylic, spray paint, airbrush, oil pastel, hair braid, shoe lace with beads, glitter, staples, thumb tacks, collage, silk flower and plastic insect on canvas, 70″ x 60″/Photo: moniquemeloche gallery
Perhaps the most famous artist included in the show is Mickalene Thomas, who has contributed two of her trademark multimedia portraits of Black women. Each of Thomas’ works begins with a photograph, which she then modifies into stylistic pluralities. Her source material this time around is a French erotica magazine from the fifties called “Exotic Nudes,” in which Black women assume contorted poses to appease lecherous voyeurs. Yet something powerful has occurred in the mere act of removing these photographs from their original context. Rather than taking on the debased, fetishized status they would’ve held in France at the time of their printing—during which countless African countries still fell under the purview of French colonial exploitation—they are made whole by Thomas’ congenial gaze. Their facial expressions—one bored, the other joyful—become defiant acts of resistance in the face of great oppression. It is in works like these that the exhibit is at its strongest: collage’s continued relevance is clearly and cogently demonstrated.
Sanford Biggers, “Promiscuous Platform,” 2023, assorted textiles, mixed media, archival paper mounted on felt, 31 1/2″ x 30 1/4″ x 1 1/2″/Photo: moniquemeloche gallery
For all that “Collage Culture” does well, the show has its flaws. Despite the large quantity of innovative works the exhibit brings together, its only real answer to the fundamental question “What is a collage?” seems to be “whatever seems like one.” The inclusion of found-material works by Nyugen Smith and Sheree Hovsepian serves not formal innovation but the mere reclassification of sculptural output under a different heading. The lack of any coherent definition of “collage” makes it hard to find a meaningful throughline connecting the exhibit’s artworks. Lavar Munroe’s virtuosic “So Silent Your Whisper” is a poignant double-portrait, and Sanford Biggers’ “Promiscuous Platform” delineates sorts of pictorial space I didn’t know existed, but does either gain anything from being hung alongside the other?
They may not form a coherent whole, but there’s no denying that each tableau in the show possesses boundless intrigue for the inquisitive viewer. It is a must-see for those concerned about the fate of bricolage in an art world more cutthroat than ever.
“Collage Culture” is on view at moniquemeloche gallery, 451 North Paulina, through July 27.
