What I really like about the photomontages by Duane Michaels and the other artists that were mentioned, is that they told a story. I guess that one could say that each work of art tells a story. But with these montages the deduced opacity, soft outlines, and the stacked planes one was able to get many different parts of the story onto one canvas, and it looked a lot cleaner, neater. It's an opposite from the collages of the Dada movement which I personally didn't prefer to look at. With these montages, the art piece tell their story in a calm, steady tone.If you look at the piece by Diane Fester, or Istvan Horkay, you could look at each stacked plane separately without making your eyes pop out of your eye sockets. The story seems to flow better, in my opinion. A woman, in Fester's piece, has gone through a horrible tragedy, not only the colors, but the handwriting, the lonely tree, and the woman's face, that almost (as the author puts it) merge into one another to tell a dramatic story of how her world was in sudden turmoil. To me a work of art like that makes a greater impact on me because the artist was able to project a time of distortion and disorientation during a tragedy while keeping the visual story telling calm, so that it makes sense. The author noted that Horkay presented "how [American] culture is the constant reappropriation of everything, currently culminating in pandemic Americanization" with several layers as well, but you are able to see that there is a story of some sort (not like in some Dada art where it's a collection of cutout pieces ferociously placed on top of one another).
I chose this image by Istvan Horkay because it's another example of dramatically telling a historical narrative through calm dissolving layers.
I also found Michals' photomontages more aesthetically pleasing than the Dada photomontages we've looked at because, as you stated, his work is more calm and steady. Michals' work does tell a story without hitting, metaphorically speaking, you in the face with what his work. And like you said, Michal's tells the audience a story that flows throughout the photomontage.
ReplyDeleteWhile I did find these kinds of photomontages more aesthetically pleasing and appreciated the complex stories that are told through the pieces of art, however, I was able to understand the Dada-type photomontage stories as well. I think the cutout pieces in their art were artfully put together and not ferociously placed on top of one another. Just a thought :)
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