Call for Issue 06: Winter 2021
Curated by Michael Oatman

Deadline for submissions: October 1, 2020

Object Lessons
Cut Me Up (and Fold Me)

“Take an object.
“Do something to it.
“Do something else to it.”

– Jasper Johns, Book A 

Considered the inaugural ‘modern’ collage, Picasso’s “Still Life with Chair Caning” (1911) is also an assemblage — abstracting a café tabletop via painted marks and a graphic print of woven chair material — gathered onto a rope-framed oval canvas.

For 6 months we have been teleporting into the kitchens, living rooms, studios and garages of our friends, relatives, colleagues and total strangers. ZOOM and other platforms claim a corpo- real surrogacy, trading on our desire to retain ‘touch’ during the Pandemic. We cannot. We now live inside images – like the other objects in view. We are stuff.

Objects in my own home have become newly fascinating — and estranging. The still life painter Giorgio Morandi lived inside a world of trusted objects. What if he had been a sculptor, or an artist making collage/assemblage?

Now, more than ever, the solid object beckons as a symbol of the real and concrete in an increasingly ephemeral world. The ongoing plagues of COVID-19 and pervasive racial discrimination may prompt us to draw out new formal, conceptual and humanist dimensions in our work.

Collage is a medium where touch is essential. I’ve been craving physical contact to counter the tyranny of the light-emitting screen. So, this is the directive: Go 3-D with your collage art practice. Investigate the idea of the architectural ‘section.’ Ex- cavate. Build up. Un-flatten. Assemble. Take your art into new dimensions.

– Michael Oatman, Artist and Educator

To submit artwork responses:

  • Make assemblages in any combination of media that explore the spectrum of dimensionality from 2-D to 4-D.

  • Reflect on the use of Readymades — in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp and Meret Oppenheim.

  • Consider interiority. Shadows might play a role previously unaddressed in your works.

  • 3-D printing, laser cutting and other digital tools are worth employing.

  • One possible direction: a work that might be cut out of the magazine and get folded, tabbed and slotted by subscribers to Cut Me Up Issue 6.

  • Photograph your assemblages in the studio, on the street or in contexts previously unused.

  • All eligible submissions must incorporate some portion or portions of Cut Me Up: Issue 5.

Issue 6 Curator Michael Oatman

Artist Michael Oatman is a Professor of Architecture at Rensselaer, in Troy, NY. Originally from Burlington, VT, his art practice walked from the woods of his home state into historical, scientific and personal archives across America, in search of material culture informing his collages and installations. Made from thousands of components, these “un-vironments” can be seen long-term at MASS MoCA, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and The Tang Museum, and his collages are in hundreds of collections nationally. Factory Direct, his 2000 arts/industry residency, traveled to the Warhol and ArtSpace. He was awarded the Nancy Graves Prize in 2003. Oatman was the first artist invited to work with the personal collections of Astronaut Neil Armstrong; in 2019, Purdue University’s Museum featured his installation, My Father, Neil Armstrong, My Mother, The Moon.

Instagram: @michaeloatmanartist
Web: Google “Michael Oatman Artist”

Cut Me Up Issue 6: Object Lessons was published on January 1, 2021.