The first time Auntie Foo checked in, an anonymous comment arrived with savvy guesswork about auntie’s identity and some excellent info and illustrations about the art of collage.
A bit of sleuthing revealed that the anonymous commenter was Walter Hartmann, an old associate of Carl Weissner, Jorg Fauser, and Jurgen Ploog, from their GASOLIN 23 years.
Auntie Foo is, of course, a nomme de collage. Hartmann’s guess was, “mebbe i’m wrong BUT it smell a wee bit FLYPAPER, doesnt it? norm ogue mustill.” My lips are sealed.
Meanwhile, Hartmann has followed up with incidental intelligence about collagists on his side of the pond who offer their own eye-poop.
He writes:
speaking of current youngster collagio, i really liked some of these Mario Wagner items & this guy Wagner a while ago did a 36pp postcard-size brochure for playstation tipped into VICE magazine (see his further clients works) … oh & i used to be a big fan of Neasden Control Centre, & in ’07 i went to hamburg to see their expo in a small youngster gallery there… just loved their early collage work & crude drawings i found in their 1st book in 2003… meanwhile they too did lots of commercials/advertising (mtv, nike, volkswagen)… seems neasden started out as a 2-boy team in london, but for a while since then the stephen smith guy works with this anna girl & the collage thing stopped. it’s funny how both wagner & neasden only use(d) old b/w ’60s or ’70s snippets in their work, no? and yes it seems quite a lotta those Youngsters Today show their freie kunst stuff in galleries & do commercial work for corporate clients…
Hartmann sent along a sample image from the first Neasden book, published in 2003 and now o.p. …
jpg-thumb-414x310-16184.jpg "Scan from an out-of-print 'Neasdon Control Centre,' edited by R. Klanten [2003].")
… along with the shots of several 1960 collages by J.G. Ballard’s “old buddy Ed Paolozzi,” taken from Winfried Konnertz’s book on Paolozzi, published in Cologne in 1984 by DuMont. The one in the center “is fixing up mr james joyce w/ grete wiesenthal,” Hartmann adds. “in the icy blackness of space…the ghost face of hannah hoech SMILES.”
-thumb-414x228-16186.jpg "Scan from Winfried Konnertz's book on Eduardo Paolozzi [Dumont, 1984]")
Hartmann continues:
oh and browsing for snippet gypsies minnits ago i just happen to find … these, using multiple cut-out layers on a pinup centerfold, posted by Mario Zoots at Society 6, and some really dressed down minimalistishe approaches posted by Anthony Zinonos, also at Society 6 … in short, KLEBEKUNST LIVES! no?
The dope on some of Hartmann’s own work comes from another informant, who says that Hartmann and Gregor Pott recently did “an incredible translation job” on Mary Beach‘s Die Elektrische Banane. Described as a “two-fisted version,” the book publishes the original Gothic Banana text in English along with the German translation. What will it take for an American publisher just to bring out the original?
Speaking of f*** faces, some Chapman bros 3-D toddler version recently fetched quite a sum @ Christie’s in London (http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=9&intObjectID=5335329&sid=db65edfe-f4a7-4110-b377-7c9721759fdd).
I’ll object to the comment stating Neasden Control Centre “only use(d) old b/w ’60s or ’70s snippets in their work”, which is simply not true. They did use color pix too. But who knows, there may indeed be a little Paolozzi synch here since Mr Paolozzi repeatedly said in interviews how the trading cards of his childhood (given to him by customers of his father’s store) were a source for his ways of image processing or coming to terms with imagery in later years, and it seems he even kept some of those cards and used them in his early collage work (according to a 1973 interview) —— and with Neasden CC, considering the time bracket of their preferred collage source material seems to be identical with their growing up or formative years?
Whoa!! “artandmoney” comment below (with URL) is talking about “Fuck Face,” which sold for $173,336.
Jake and Dinos Chapman (b. 1966 and b. 1962)
Fuck Face
fibreglass, resin, paint, fabric, wig and trainers
40½ x 22 x 9 7/8in. (103 x 56 x 25cm.)
Executed in 1994
Ah yes, what a BOLD approach to human physiognomy, i must admit, in those collages you show here!
And yet, being a Hoech aficionado I’ll have to insist it wasn’t Mr Paolozzi but Hannah Hoech who first applied a human silhouette cut out in her collage work, back in 1931, in “Die starken Maenner” (cf. http://www.focus.de/kultur/kunst/hannah-hoech_did_15093.html … pls select pic 9). In fact already her 1919 work “Da Dandy” features the silhouette of a male head in profile which she filled with clippings of female faces. And 1918 was the year when that famed and fab dada couple, Hoech and Hausmann, invented the photo montage, I’m told?
I’m sure you’re all familiar with her paintings where Hoech liked to transfer collage work onto canvas, and I especially love her 1925 painting “Roma” (featuring Asta Nielsen and Mussolini) where Hoech also included two negative forms, i.e. painting the Nielsen composite photosources sans those parts she had cut out and used in her center montage —— which obviously shows Asta N. urging Mussolini (after his seizing power in 1922) to get the hell out of Rome… (http://www.focus.de/kultur/kunst/hannah-hoech_did_15093.html)
Ach, what a great and free spirit, our girl from Gotha? After ditching that bitchy Hausmann guy Hannah shacked up with the female dutch writer Til Brugman in 1926 and in 1938 married Dr Kurt Heinz Matthies whom she’d met on on a Dolomiten Wandertour; Herr Dr Matthies being much younger than her (two decades, sources say).
Like in her essay DIE ERSTEN FOTOMONTAGEN she wrote: “Ein wundersames Neuland, das zu entdecken als erste Voraussetzung hat: Hemmungslosigkeit. Aber nicht Disziplinlosigkeit.”