Holding It Together: Collage, Montage, Assemblage

RINA BANERJEE, JAY DEFEO, TIM HAWKINSON, EMIL LUKAS, JOHN O'REILLY, PATRICIA PICCININI, LILIANA PORTER, ALAN RATH, ANDREW SCHOULTZ, WILLIAM T. WILEY, BRUCE CONNER, JEAN CONNER, JOHN ASHBERY, JOE BRAINARD, SARAH CAIN, NICK CAVE, MATHEW HALE, JESS, MATT LIP

This group exhibition highlights artists whose practice involves combining disparate elements to create a coherent object that takes on a completely different meaning than the sum of its parts. Though collage, montage and assemblage can be used to create abstract work, this exhibition focuses on representation, particularly that dealing with the human body or psychology.

The title, Holding It Together, most obviously refers to the adhesive used to make an assemblage or collage, but also alludes to the concepts that unify the diverse images or objects into a discrete entity. Colloquially, the title refers to maintaining your sanity or keeping your cool through physical or emotional difficulty.

An assemblage is a sculptural object made by grouping together found or unrelated objects, and a collage is a two-dimensional version of this practice, layering found or original images and text onto a single flat surface. Montage refers to the process of piecing together fragments of pictures and text to form a seamless, continuous whole.

More than fifty objects made from the 1950s to 2014 explore identity, sexuality, the subconscious and the subliminal. Artists include:

John Ashbery, Rina Banerjee, Joe Brainard, Sarah Cain, Nick Cave, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, Mathew Hale, Tim Hawkinson, Jess, Matt Lipps, Emil Lukas, Ruth Marten, Vik Muniz, Wangechi Mutu, John O’Reilly, Patricia Piccinini, Liliana Porter, Alan Rath, Ed Ruscha, Raymond Saunders, Andrew Schoultz and William T. Wiley.