Students in the George Washington University class Special Topics in Design: Collage are tearing things up—and then putting them together in new arrangements. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle assembled not as originally intended, perhaps with some pieces changed beyond recognition or even discarded, to reveal a fresh and different view.
The course is taught by Marc Choi, assistant professor of graphic design in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, housed in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. It entails a mixture of studio time, with students creating collages to fulfill various assignments and taking part in discussion and critique, and lectures covering topics such as the history of the form.
Art historians commonly trace the popular emergence of collage to the early 20th century, when World War I shattered the international order, and scientific theories, such as Einstein’s relativity and Freud’s ideas about the subconscious, unsettled notions of reality. At the same time, technological developments such as automobiles, airplanes and radio intensified the sense of instability, collapsing time and space and increasing the speed of life. People felt as if the new world was reflected in cubist paintings by Picasso and Braque—or, as a Dadaist might have said, as if life’s essential absurdity had been revealed.
Dada artists such as Kurt Schwitters and Hannah Höch fractured existing images and recombined the pieces in new ways that seemed truer to life. In a lecture, Choi sketched the history of collage from cubism and Dada to the Fluxus movement of the 1960s, touching on figures such as Ray Johnson and Corita Kent.
“Now is a great time to teach this material,” Choi said, “because I think we are in a time where we’re figuring out that the world isn’t exactly how we thought it was. How do students experience that? How do you use that as content or material to design with, to create with?”
Students in the collage class taught by Marc Choi (standing at left) view the work of classmates during a critique. (Florence Shen/GW Today)
A collage presents an image produced by pulling together disparate elements or by breaking a single image into a new configuration. It is simultaneously an act of destruction and construction, and may communicate multiple things based on how it is perceived.
Thinking deeply about collage means realizing that it’s not just a matter of throwing images together. It makes a difference whether materials are cut neatly or torn. Early in the semester, Choi talked with students about basic techniques.
“What does it mean to tear something?” Choi asked. “What does it mean to cut something precisely? My students tear paper, cut paper into strips and use a grid format to combine rectilinear shapes on a surface. What does it mean to cut curvilinear shapes with scissors or an X-ACTO knife?” He makes sure students know how to use a glue stick. “That sounds a little ridiculous, but there is a better way to do it versus what we did in elementary school.”
To complete course assignments, students create collages meeting specific requirements. One such assignment is to create a pair of collages around a single theme of the student’s choosing, one clearly legible (not purely representational, but readily understandable) and one illegible (presenting viewers with more of a challenge). One way of approaching this assignment, Choi told students, was to think about how their topic looks (legible) and also how it feels (illegible).
Students will also be asked to create a collage inspired by images from the photographs of Wesaam Al-Badry and Peter van Agtmael, two members of the artist-led organization For Freedoms, currently in the second year of a three-year residency hosted in partnership between the Corcoran and the National Gallery of Art. Work by the two photographers, now on view at the Flagg Building in the exhibit “Americas,” is being studied this semester in a photojournalism class taught by Susan Sterner. The classes will pair up to allow the students to meet with the artists as they formulate responses to the work.
Some of Choi’s collage assignments require working on computer, while others foreground hands-on technique. Some require working with found elements, while others call for forms created for the purpose. Students are also asked to work with typography.
“As an essential element of graphic design practice, typography needs to be present in this course,” Choi said. “Letterforms and words also go through a process of combination, recombination and fracturing. Is a sentence not a collage? Are words not collages composed of individual letterforms? Typography can be used to create an image that can be read as well as experienced, exploring the expressive quality of text.”
Choi introduces students to the work of contemporary figures such as Kensuke Koike, known for working with limited materials.
“An assignment I gave students to create a collage based on a self-portrait was inspired by his work,” Choi said. “Can you find all the information you need within a single image? I think that idea is so powerful, and such an interesting way for students to look at images—not as subject, but as form, shape, color, tone and texture.”
Marley Carolan created this collage on the theme of graffiti and street art.
Several students said they appreciate the chance the class gives them to create with their hands rather than on the computer.
“I feel like I’ve been exercising a part of my brain that I don't use very often,” said Sophia Noto, a senior majoring in graphic design. “With the computer, there are shortcuts that can be very helpful, but it’s nice to be able to slow down and work with physical materials, because it allows me to think more deeply about what I’m doing.”
Senior graphic design majors Eve Harclerode and Ian Menkel agreed. Harclerode said the course had reawakened her interest in the physical processes of art-making.
“There's a lot of joy and fun in making things, and I think that we forget that as we grow up,” Harclerode said. “Studies in general are very digital these days, so you’re always on your laptop, and it's nice to get back into physically making things.”
“I'm having a blast,” Menkel said. “A lot of work on my projects is done digitally, so I wanted to take the collage class to work more with my hands.”
Hannah Lord, a junior graphic design major, said her journey in the course has taken her in the opposite direction—from a strong interest in working manually to being happy in the digital space.
“The access to digital tools was not that great when I was growing up,” Lord said, so she spent time cutting images from magazines and putting them together on a cutout board. “I’m used to cutting around the edge and preserving the image as it was but placing it into different scenarios. What surprised me most in this course so far is learning how abstract you can be with collage art.”
Noto said the slower pace of manual work has built her patience. Menkel was surprised by how helpful the classroom critiques of his work have been. Discovering her ability to make abstract arguments in an artwork has been a pleasant surprise for Harclerode, who said she is now more interested in collage.
Such comments show that Choi’s goals for the course are being achieved.
“From a technical standpoint, I want students to be more sensitive to their craftsmanship. Collage is a hands-on medium that requires precision, even though we’re tearing and ripping and gluing. I want them to walk away from the class knowing that a combination of time, effort and sensitivity produces quality,” Choi said.
“I want them to view the world less literally. I want them to question what’s in front of them, and I want them to see things in a more abstract way. What can something be, versus what we’re told it is? To me, that gets at collage—it becomes an opening for expression and communication.”
