Assemblage is an artistic form or medium usually created on a defined substrate that consists of three-dimensional elements projecting out of or from the substrate. It is similar tocollage, a two-dimensional medium. It is part of thevisual arts and it typically uses found objects, but is not limited to these materials.[1][2] The term also may be applied to free-standing works that have been assembled.
The origin of the art form dates to the cubist constructions ofPablo Picasso c. 1912–1914.[3] The origin of the word (in its artistic sense) may be traced back to the early 1950s, whenJean Dubuffet created a series ofcollages of butterfly wings, which he entitledassemblages d'empreintes. However,Marcel Duchamp,Jean Arp[4] and others had been working withfound objects for many years prior to Dubuffet. Russian artistVladimir Tatlin created his "counter-reliefs" in 1914. Alongside Tatlin, the earliest woman artist to try her hand at assemblage wasElsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the Dada Baroness. In Paris during the 1920sAlexander Calder,Jose De Creeft,Picasso, and others began making fully 3-dimensional works from metal scraps, found metal objects, and wire. In the U.S., one of the earliest and most prolific assemblage artists wasLouise Nevelson, who began creating her sculptures from found pieces of wood in the late 1930s.
In the 1950s and 1960s assemblage started to become more widely known and used. Artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns started using scrappy materials and objects to make anti-aesthetic art sculptures, a big part of the ideas that make assemblage what it is.[5]
The painterArmando Reverón is one of the first to use this technique when using disposable materials such as bamboo, wires, or kraft paper. In the thirties he made a skeleton with wings of mucilage, adopting this style years before other artists. Later, Reverón made instruments and set pieces such as a telephone, a sofa, a sewing machine, a piano, and even music books with their scores.Jim Gary searched in junk yards for parts that would fit into the design of his sculptures.
Steve Brudniak (born 1961) American artist, actor, and musician
John Chamberlain (1927–2011), a Chicago artist known for his sculptures of welded pieces of wrecked automobiles
Greg Colson (born 1956), an American artist known for his wall sculptures of stick maps, constructed paintings, solar systems, directionals, and intersections
Joseph Cornell (1903–1972), Cornell, who lived in New York City, is known for his delicate boxes, usually glass-fronted, in which he arranged surprising collections of objects, images of renaissance paintings and old photographs; many of his boxes, such as the famous Medici Slot Machine boxes, are interactive and are meant to be handled[8]
Jim Gary (1939–2006), an American sculptor who lived in New Jersey is known for his fine, architectural, landscape, and abstracts in steel, stained glass, and hardware, as well as for his internationally traveling museum exhibition of monumental assemblages of close to life-sized dinosaurs and other animals using unaltered automobile parts that reached as much as sixty feet in length
Rosalie Gascoigne (1917–1999), a New Zealand-born Australian sculptor
Raoul Hausmann (1886–1971), an Austrian artist and writer and a key figure inBerlin Dada, his most famous work is the assemblageDer Geist Unserer Zeit –Mechanischer Kopf (Mechanical Head [The Spirit of Our Age]), c. 1920
Romuald Hazoumé (born 1962), a contemporary artist from the Republic of Bénin, who exhibits widely in Europe and the U.K.
George Herms (born 1935), an American artist known for his assemblages, works on papers, and theater pieces
Louis Hirshman (1905–1986), a Philadelphia artist known for his use of 3-D materials on flat substrates for caricatures of the famous, as well as for collages and assemblages of everyday life, archetypes, and surreal scenes
Irma Hünerfauth (born 1907), a German artist, known for her combine paintings, collages, and assemblages, scrap sculptures, machines, and kinetic art from found objects
Jasper Johns (born 1930), an American Pop artist, painter, printmaker, and sculptor
Edward Kienholz (1927–1994), an American artist who collaborated with his wife,Nancy Reddin Kienholz, creating free-standing, large-scale "tableaux" or scenes of modern life such as the Beanery, complete with models of persons, made of discarded objects[9]
Lubo Kristek (born 1943), a Czech artist known for his critical assemblages of bones, traps, material cast out by the sea, waste, and mobile telephones (destructed in a happening)[10]
Janice Lowry (1946–2009), American artist known for biographical art in the form of assemblage, artist books, and journals, which combined found objects and materials with writings and sketches[11]
Ondrej Mares (1949–2008), a Czech-Australian artist and sculptor best known for his 'Kachina' figures – a series of works[12]
Markus Meurer (born 1959), a German artist, known for his sculptures from found objects
Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), an American artist, known for her abstract expressionist "boxes" grouped together to form a new creation; she used found objects or everyday discarded things in her "assemblages" or assemblies, one of which was three stories high[13]
John Outterbridge (1933–2020), an American artist known for his pioneering work in assemblage; Outterbridge’s sculptures, created from found objects and discarded materials, explored themes of African American identity, history, and social justice; he was a key figure in the Los Angeles Black Arts Movement and served as the director of the Watts Towers Art Center[14]
Wolfgang Paalen (1905–1959), an Austrian-German-Mexican surrealist artist and theorist, founder of the magazineDYN and known for several assembled objects, f.e.Nuage articulé
Noah Purifoy (1917–2004), an African-American visual artist and sculptor, co-founder of the Watts Towers Art Center, and creator of the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum; he is best known for his assemblage sculpture, including a body of work made from charred debris and wreckage collected after the Watts Riots of August 1965
Sara Rahbar (born 1976), sculptor, collagist, mixed media artist, best known for her flag series
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), painter and collagist known for his mixed media works during six decades
Betye Saar (born 1926), American visual artist primarily known for her assemblages with family memorabilia, stereotyped African American figures from folk culture and advertising, mystical amulets and charms, and ritual and tribal objects
Alexis Smith (born 1949) is an American artist best known for assemblages and installations
Daniel Spoerri (born 1930), a Swiss artist, known for his "snare pictures" in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by individuals, including the plates, silverware, and glasses, all of which are fixed to the table or board, which is then displayed on a wall[15]
Vladimir Tatlin (1885–1953), a Russian artist known for his counter-reliefs—structures made of wood and iron for hanging in wall corners in the 1910s
Jeffrey Vallance (born 1955), an American artist known for his assemblages, drawings, sculptures, paintings and conceptual art
Wolf Vostell (1932–1998), known for his use of concrete in his work. In his environments, video installations, and paintings he used television sets and concrete, as well as telephones, real cars, and pieces of automobiles
Gordon Wagner (1915–1987), was a pioneer in American assemblage art, who was known for his bazaar art, painting, poetry, and writing
Jeff Wassmann (born 1958), an American-born contemporary artist who works in Australia under the nom de plume of the pioneering German modernistJohann Dieter Wassmann (1841–1898)[16]
Tom Wesselmann (1931–2004), an American Pop artist, painter, sculptor, and printmaker
H. C. Westermann (1922–1981), an American sculptor and printmaker
Lubo Kristek,Soundproof Aesthetic of Luxuriety, 1976
Steve Brudniak,Ontological Catastrophe (2019), antique electronic test equipment, engraved cast iron, carved phenolic and ABS plastics, 51 x 31 x 7 in.
^Wieland Schmied and Daniel Spoerri,Daniel Spoerri: Coincidence as Master = Le Hasard comme maître = Der Zufall als Meister = Il caso come maestro, Bielefeld, Germany, 2003 at p. 10.
William C. Seitz:The Art of Assemblage. Exhib. October 4 - November 12, 1961, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1961.
Stephan Geiger:The Art of Assemblage. The Museum of Modern Art, 1961. Die neue Realität der Kunst in den frühen sechziger Jahren, (Dissertation Universität Bonn 2005), München 2008,ISBN978-3-88960-098-1
Sophie Dannenmüller: "Un point de vue géographique: l'assemblage en Californie", inL'art de l'assemblage. Relectures, sous la direction de Stéphanie Jamet-Chavigny et Françoise Levaillant. Presses universitaires de Rennes, collection "Art & société", Rennes, 2011.
Sophie Dannenmüller: "L'assemblage en Californie: une esthétique de subversion", inLa Fonction critique de l'art, Dynamiques et ambiguïtés, sous la direction de Evelyne Toussaint, Les éditions de La Lettre volée / Essais, Bruxelles, 2009.
Sophie Dannenmüller: "Bruce Conner et les Rats de l'Art",Les Cahiers du Musée national d'art moderne, Editions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, n° 107, avril 2009, p. 52-75.
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