T E E N T E C H W E E K TA K E A PA R T

U N D E R S TA N D I N G
ASSEMBLAGE
W H AT I S
ASSEMBLAGE?

Within painting, stemming from abstract

expressionism and surrealism this
treatment of combining elements in
strange ways was beginning in the early
1900s.

An art form in which natural and

manufactured, traditionally non-artistic
materials and objects trouvs are
assembled into three-dimensional
structures.

The term was coined by Jean Dubuffet in

1953 to refer to his series of butterfly
wing collages and classified many other
styles of work such as cubism and the
dada movements.
 W H AT B E G A N
ASSEMBLAGE?
The ancestry of the assemblage can be traced back to
the artistic and literary environment of late 19th-
century France. In his later poetry, especially Un Coup
de ds jamais nabolira le hasard (1897), Stphane
Mallarm adopted a technique in which poetic
fragments were pieced together in unusual semantic
and typographic arrangements. Guillaume Apollinaire
later extended this method in his Calligrammes (1918).
By emphasizing the visual appearance of words their
traditional role of signification was both enhanced and
expanded. In the same manner assemblage
emphasizes the visual or tactile qualities of formerly
utilitarian objects while nevertheless exploiting the
perception of the banality of such objects.
!
In the visual arts, one of the most notable early
attempts to use non-artistic materials can be found in
Edgar Degass Little Dancer Aged 14 (188081; bronze
version, London, Tate). In an attempt to achieve
greater realism, Degas included a real muslin skirt and
hair ribbon in the bronze version, and the original clay
and wax version also included a horse-hair wig.
The concept of assemblage was given
wide public currency by the exhibition
The Art of Assemblage at MOMA, New
York, in 1961. This included works by
nearly 140 international artists, including
Braque, Joseph Cornell, Dubuffet,
Marcel Duchamp, Picasso, Robert
Rauschenberg, Man Ray and Kurt
Schwitters.
!
Several of the works shown were in
fact collages, but the breadth of
styles and artists included reflects the
wide application of the term and the
sometimes fine distinction between
assemblage and collage. The
combine paintings of Rauschenberg,
for example, fall awkwardly between
the two, being essentially planar but
with often extensive protrusions of
objects. The inclusion of real objects
and materials both expanded the
range of artistic possibilities and
attempted to bridge the gap
between art and life.
IT WAS
HAPPENING IN
OTHER MEDIUMS

Man Ray, famous for his

ray-ograms where he
would create images
directly onto paper in the
dark room, was creating
assemblages in
photography as well as in
sculpture.
SURREALISM

The facility with which objects could be

juxtaposed in assemblage made the
medium ideally suited to the Surrealists in
their quest for the marvellous. The
Surrealist object thus became an important
part of the movements output, allowing a
material equivalent to the juxtaposition of
distant entities embodied in the Surrealist
image, as in Meret Oppenheims fur-lined
cup and saucer, Object (1936; New York,
MOMA).
For example Daniel Spoerris tableaux piges,
such as Table City Galerie (1965; Amsterdam,
Stedel. Mus.), were often made from the refuse
of meals, illustrating human consumption and,
more broadly, the consumer society. This theme
was developed more consistently in Pop art,
which emphasized the synthetic, brash nature of
mass-produced consumer products.
!
The assemblage proved an effective way of
realizing this aim, as shown, for example, by Tom
Wesselmanns Still Life #40 (1964; Saint-Etienne,
Mus. A. & Indust.), which used brightly coloured
synthetic materials. The environmental works of
Edward Kienholz, such as The Beanery (1965;
Amsterdam, Stedel. Mus.), used assemblage on
a much larger scale and broke radically with the
residual sculptural connotations of assemblage
by literally surrounding the viewer and
recreating reality in a distorted form. The
continued use of the assemblage into the 1990s
showed it to be a medium almost as flexible and
important in modern art as painting or the
traditional technique of sculpture.
EXQUISITE
CORPSE
Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver
(from the original French term cadavre exquis) or
rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of
words or images is collectively assembled. Each
collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either
by following a rule.
!
The technique was invented by surrealists and is similar
to an old parlour game called Consequences in which
players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to
conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next
player for a further contribution. Surrealism principal
founder Andr Breton reported that it started in fun, but
became playful and eventually enriching. Breton said
the diversion started about 1925, but Pierre Reverdy
wrote that it started much earlier, at least before 1918.
!
The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when
Surrealists first played the game, "Le cadavre exquis
boira le vin nouveau." ("The exquisite corpse shall drink
the new wine.")[5][6] Andr Breton writes that the game
developed at the residence of friends in an old house at
54 rue du Chateau (no longer existing). In the beginning
were Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prvert,
Benjamin Pret, Pierre Reverdy, and Andr Breton.
A S S I G N M E N T:
Beginning March 8th is Teen Tech week. Teen tech week began as a way to
raise awareness of the engagement of technology in schools.

Part of teen tech week is the take apart. People donate old broken
electronic items to the library and students come together to take them apart
to make something new.

Next week you will be in the library taking these things apart and with your
partner you will make a sculpture from these parts.

I would like your sculpture to resemble an animal but it can be a hybrid robotic
animal or a combo of different animals similar to the exquisite corpse.

Taking something that is technological (e-waste) that is intended to be

disregarded is assemblage but it also speaks to the environmental aspects of
recycling properly. Therefore your end product needs to be something that
depicts the natural world, i.e. animal, tree, plant, insect.
ANIMAL SCULPTURE
EXAMPLES