3 credit hours

Emerging from the catastrophic and widespread destruction of World War I, the artists in the European art movements known as Dadaism and Surrealism created artwork through collage and assemblage that deconstructed the rational world system that led to World War I. One of their main methods to critique, attack, and disassemble the artificial order of the 'bourgeoisie' was to use commercial images and objects in their collages and assemblages. Through this work, the artists embraced chance, accident and improvisation, and explored the poetic subconscious. In this course, students will explore the ideas and concepts that led to the popularity of collage and assemblage in the 20th century. They will create their own while re-contextualizing collage/asswmblage within recent history in the current digital age. Artists explored will include Romare Bearden, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Jean Hans Arp, Man Ray, Meret Oppenheim, Joan Miro, Joseph Cornell, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, et al.