Assemblage
Assemblage is an artistic process whereby two or three dimensional artistic compositions are created by combining found objects. While similar to the process of collage, it is distinct in its deliberate inclusion of non-art materials.
The origin of the term in its artistic sense can be traced back to the early 1950s, when French artist Jean Dubuffet created a series of collages of butterfly wings, which he titled "assemblages d'empreintes. " However, the origin of the artistic practice dates to the early 20th century as both Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso had been working with found-objects for many years prior to Dubuffet, and they were not alone. Russian constructivist artist Vladimir Tatlin created his "counter-reliefs" in the middle of 1910s. Alongside Tatlin, the earliest woman artist to try her hand at assemblage was Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the Dada Baroness. The most recognizable assemblage pieces from this period are the readymades of Marcel Duchamp, such as Fountain, 1917. Readymades were found-objects which Duchamp chose and presented as art. The idea was to question the notion of art and the accepted canon, and the adoration of art, which Duchamp found "unnecessary. "
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain
Duchamp's appropriation of a urinal as a piece of art challenged the prevailing definition of sculpture.
Another early and prolific assemblage artist was Louise Nevelson, who began creating her sculptures from found pieces of wood in the late 1930s. Nevelson's most notable sculptures are her walls: wooden, wall-like, collage-driven reliefs consisting of multiple boxes and compartments that hold abstract shapes and found-objects from chair legs to balusters. Nevelson described these immersive sculptures as "environments. " The wooden pieces were also cast-off scraps, pieces found in the streets of New York. Unlike Duchamp's poor attempt to mask the urinal's true form, Nevelson took found-objects and by spray painting them she disguised them of their actual use or meaning. Nevelson called herself "the original recycler" owing to her extensive use of discarded objects, and credited Pablo Picasso for the cube that served as the groundwork for her cubist-style sculpture.
In 1961, the exhibition "The Art of Assemblage" was featured at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition showcased the work of early 20th century European artists such as Braque, Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Picasso, and Kurt Schwitters alongside Americans Man Ray, Joseph Cornell, Robert Mallary and Robert Rauschenberg, and also included lesser known American west coast assemblage artists such as George Herms, Bruce Conner and Edward Kienholz. William C. Seitz, the curator of the exhibition, described assemblages as being made up of preformed natural or manufactured materials, objects, or fragments not intended as art materials. Of the assemblage artists in this period, Robert Rauschenberg is a significant proponent. Rauschenberg picked up trash and found objects that interested him on the streets of New York City and brought these back to his studio where they could become integrated into his work. These works, which he called "combines," served as instances in which the delineated boundaries between art, sculpture, and the everyday were broken down so that all were present in a single work of art. Technically "combines" refers to Rauschenberg's work from 1954 to 1962, but the impetus to combine both painting materials and everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris, and taxidermic animals continued throughout his artistic life.
Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon
This assemblage combines the materials of oil, housepaint, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, buttons, nails, cardboard, printed paper, photographs, wood, paint tubes, mirror string, pillow & bald eagle on canvas.