The artwork of Brian Jungen.

This month in Art in America there is an article about Brian Jungen. Jungen's artwork takes modern day common objects and transforms them into different cultural icons. His work draws reference to Marcel Duchamp's readymades but takes them to the next level. His work is awe inspiring, beautifully crafted, and brilliantly conceived.

The following passage is from wikipedia:
Jungen's art draws upon the tradition of "found art", espoused by such twentieth-century artists as Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. Instead of presenting objects "as-is," however, Jungen often reworks them without fully concealing their original meaning or purpose. For instance, Jungen's series Prototypes of New Understanding consists of aboriginal masks assembled and hand-sewn from parts of Nike Air Jordan shoes. Jungen writes: "It was interesting to see how by simply manipulating the Air Jordan shoes you could evoke specific cultural traditions whilst simultaneously amplifying the process of cultural corruption and assimilation. The Nike mask sculptures seemed to articulate a paradoxical relationship between a consumerist artefact and an 'authentic' native artifact."

The collage artwork of Jonathan Talbot.

Years ago, when I started experimenting with collage, I purchased special paper made for collage at an art store in Portland, Oregon. After I moved away from Portland I could not find it at my local art store so I contacted the maker to buy direct. The maker of the paper is also an artist with whom I have been buying from for the last 8 years. We have become internet art friends and are always looking for ways to improve our processes by sharing our discoveries.

Jonathan Talbot's artwork has been exhibited practically everywhere in the world including the Museum of Modern Art and the National Academy. Jonathan is a multi-disciplined artist that has been focusing on collage for many years. Below is his latest pieces that are based on a Marcel Duchamp study titled "La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même" (The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even), often referred to, in English, as “The Large Glass.”

In this series of collages the bachelors have been "unmolded" and can be seen as real people from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the period during which they took first form in Duchamp’s mind.

My favorite piece is definitely "The Bachelors Visit New York" with the humorous modern day police officer thrown into the composition for dramatic effect.

You can see more of Jonathan's work here.


The Duchamp Study for the "Bachelors" portion of "La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même."


"The Bachelors visit New York" 11 1/4" x 13 1/2"


"The Bachelors meet the Venus de Milo" 9 1/8" x 13 1/2"


"The Stationmaster, the Priest, the Undertaker, and the Delivery Boy Visit Palmyra" 9 1/8" x 13 1/2"


"The Loneliness of the Busboy" 9 1/8" x 13 1/2"


"The Loneliness of the Busboy Resolved" 9 1/8" x 13 1/2"


"The Arrival of the Gendarme and the Undertaker" 9 1/8" x 13 1/2"