The Seething by Diane Irby

In the wake of the influences of Cubism, Dada, and the Surrealists, assemblage art began to gain popularity in the 1950s and 60s. Assemblage reliefs and sculptures, with the incorporation of everyday objects, could be considered a three-dimensional interpretation of collage, which was first explored by Cubist artists Braque and Picasso just after the turn of the century. An early experimentation with assemblage art is seen in Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning (1912), in the way actual rope was utilized to surround the piece, as well as the suggestion of the layer of chair caning that the artwork is composed upon.

Other Cubist characteristics influenced assemblage art as well. Both movements focused on shaping new compositions from deconstructed fragments whose reinterpretations offered new and multiple perspectives. Dada’s unconventional use of everyday objects and Surrealism’s disregard of aesthetic or moral consideration paved the way for artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who were determined to confront the non-representational, expressive, and emotional seriousness of Abstract Expressionism and disrupt the standards that had been set by the commercialized gallery system.

Rauschenberg created some of the first assemblages, which he called “Combines,” a practical name describing his innovative fusion of sculpture, painting, found objects, and scraps. The anti-aesthetic characteristics of assemblage art by use of these ordinary objects and discarded materials not only challenged the traditional notion of the artist-as-genius, as well as the measure for which value was placed on art, but also the emotional gesture of Expressionism. Jasper Johns remarked that, by working with “things the mind already knows,” the familiar becomes unfamiliar. This divergence from the non-representational and eloquent aspects of Abstract Expressionism--what William C. Seitz, author of The Art of Assemblage, referred to as “extreme actualism”--served to emotionally distance the viewer from the subject matter, inviting them to re-examine seemingly unremarkable and mundane objects and images.

My piece, The Seething, created in June 2020, was inspired by the social, political, and economic climate which resulted from the effects of shelter-in-place orders at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the series of flagrant decisions made by the American government to prioritize profits over the health and welfare of the people. Due to the global significance of the pandemic, the attempt was to express a collective perspective while still acknowledging the impact it had on each of us as individuals, as families, and as Americans. Being unable to acquire other materials at the time, assemblage art seemed appropriate for translating my idea, considering the acceptable use of found and common items on hand. The transformational quality of the completed piece, producing unstable and changing identities by the creation of image-from-object, also seemed to parallel the uncertainty and restlessness as the situation was still unfolding.

I created The Seething over the course of three days. There are challenges when working with found, organic, and unconventional materials, such as being unable to anticipate how they might interact with mediums, inherent ephemeral qualities, and having a determinate amount to work with. I made a few mistakes when I first began incorporating the images into the nest. Realizing that I needed to avoid wet and heavy adhesives, I had to figure out how to keep the images from either blowing away, shifting, or falling into the cells of the nest.

Though I eventually devised a way to assign each image to its own cell, it took several hours of experimentation and many more to construct the piece. Taking care to avoid damaging the delicate walls of the nest while placing the images, I allowed the composition to take shape as I went along. To complete the piece, I used gold metallic acrylic paint, which I had to apply very carefully. I originally intended to use gold leaf, but when I tested it on a small piece of the nest, it disintegrated in the process. Not only were my materials limited, I did not want to risk ruining the incredible work that had already been done for me by the nest’s prior inhabitants. Despite the change in plan, I feel that the result is comparable.

By co-mixing sculpture, paint, photography, and found objects in the same way Rauschenberg did, I created my own “Combine.” My use of images of people captured inside the cells of a found, abandoned wasp nest, now garishly embellished with gold, represents the capitalist-driven system that we are each either trapped in or excluded from, depending on our supposed worth or dispensability. Despite its gilded exterior, the nest being actually quite fragile, often turning to literal dust under my fingertips while I was creating the piece, symbolizes the systematically constructed illusion of prosperity that holds us captive and keeps us dependent.

The title The Seething felt appropriate due to the word’s dual meaning. Its definition, ‘(of a crowd) moving in a rapid or hectic way,’ reminded me of a swarm of insects, which also alludes to ideas of a plague. Likewise, its definition, ‘to be filled with intense but unexpressed rage,’ seemed fitting to describe how many of us felt at the time the piece was created. Furthermore, the overall symbolism of The Seething, as representative of the American experience, remains relevant today.

-Diane Irby
July 25, 2022
All Rights Reserved

Bibliography

Jasper Johns. http://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.2136.html.

Seitz, William C. The Art of Assemblage: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Museum of Modern Art, 1961.