Resources
Collage and Print Media Text
Exploring collage through layering, overlapping, and combining disparate elements to create new meanings.
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Educators
Tennessee Social Studies Standards
Tennessee English Language Arts Standards
About
The visual strategies of collage – layering, overlapping, and combining disparate elements to create new meanings – are prevalent tools for artists.
Text has been integral to collage since the first examples were created in the early twentieth century. Early Cubist artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque often included pieces of newspaper, advertisements, sheet music, and painted letters as a way of linking art to the everyday world. Using text added precise messages to collage and often referenced current events. Artists today still use this strategy.
In work like Amerika IX by Tim Rollins, text is the foundation for collage – both literally and figuratively – and provides context and meaning.
Artwork
Tim Rollins, K.O.S. and Kids of Charlotte, Amerika IX, 1987
In 1981, Tim Rollins was recruited by the Intermediate School 52 in the South Bronx to develop a curriculum that incorporated making art with reading and writing for students classified as “academically or emotionally at risk.” Rollins and his students collaboratively developed K.O.S., Kids of Survival, whose signature style consisted of painting on pages from classical books of European art and literature.
Amerika IX is part of a series of paintings based on Franz Kafka’s novel Amerika. Pages from the novel were used as the base for Rollins’ work, and the golden horn imagery was also borrowed from Kafka’s text.
To create this piece, Rollins and K.O.S. teamed up with a group of youth from Charlotte, North Carolina. Rollins asked the students, “If you could be a golden instrument … if you could play a song of your freedom and dignity and your future and everything you feel about Amerika and this country … what would your horn look like?” This work was their collective response.
More information about Tim Rollins:
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/archives-tim-rollins-goes-dead-end-avant-garde-1988-9590/
https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/what-we-can-learn-from-tim-rollins-1955-2017/
IMAGE CREDIT: Tim Rollins, K.O.S. and Kids of Charlotte (American, 1955 – 2017), Amerika IX, 1987. Mixed media and collage. Gift of the Artists and Knight Gallery, Spirit Square Center for the Arts, with support from the North Carolina Arts Council, 1987.33. Collection of The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. © Tim Rollins, K.O.S. and Kids of Charlotte, 1987.
Located in Gallery 1
I wonder... Does this look familiar to you?
Many of George Washington’s portraits and profiles look the same. Take a look at a selection of George Washington’s portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Washington Everywhere | National Portrait Gallery
Why do you think so may artists would use the same image over and over again? How did this contribute to new Americans learning about the founding of the United States?
Think of other portraits you have seen and look at other images below—what does each one tell us about the person featured? What has the artist shared with us about the subject of the painting?
SSP.01 Gather information from a variety of sources
SSP.05 Develop historical awareness by: Sequencing past, present, and future in chronological order and Understanding that things change over time
SS.4.08 Determine the importance of different groups to the American Revolution
Located in Gallery 1
Located in Gallery 1
8 x 10 inch of cardboard, canvas board, or other thick materials that can hold layers of glue/paper (recommended 80lb weight paper and above)
Pencils
Used book pages (found, printed, or photocopied)
Scissors
Glue Sticks, Craft glue like Mod Podge, PVA, or white school glue
Drawing/painting materials (charcoal, oils pastels, water color, other paints)
Collage materials (magazines, photographs, print images, fabric, etc)
Activity Suggestions
Participants will create a collage using pages from a book as the foundation, with symbolic imagery drawn, painted, or collaged on top to create meaning. Participants should think about the use of the written text as well as the symbolic imagery in their artwork.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Review the history and inspiration behind Amerika IX by Tim Rollins and K.O.S. Kafka’s writing reflected these artists’ desire to convey the importance of being heard and the need to respect all voices.
- Have students choose a book or story that relates to their interests. The teacher may choose to utilize discarded books from the library like encyclopedias and dictionaries to focus on the meaning or words and how we use them. Use pages from these books to cover the canvas board or sturdy material provided as a base for this activity. Use the craft glue to thoroughly coat the surface of the board and overlap the pages until the surface is covered completely.
- Using scrap paper, students should draw concepts for how they perceive their voices and the importance of being heard and understood/respected. K.O.S. used golden, abstracted imagery of instruments and organic, body-like forms to visualize the value of their voices. What colors, shapes, objects would you use to emphasize the importance of your voice?
- Use drawing/painting/collage materials to layer these symbolic images over the pages used in the background. Think about how the imagery covers or draws attention to certain words and phrases as well as the overall composition across the artwork– What will draw the viewer’s attention? What do you want them to notice? What colors/lines/shapes can you use to create balance?
Located in Gallery 1
Located in Gallery 1
Not on view
Something to consider: STEM Connection
Artists were key players in documenting conflicts both to share with the public and to create a record of events. Do some research about the methods used in the artworks from the Hunter Museum. How would an etching or lithograph reach a different group of people than a painting? How would these inventions (and others like photography and film) affect the ways in which Americans learned about and responded to conflict?
SSP.01 Gather information from a variety of sources, including media and technology sources
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Located in Gallery 4
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Art can be an expression of identity and culture. Some communities have had these important personal representations threatened because they were different or were in opposition to new ideas being brought by expanding frontiers.
Look at the following 3 artworks that respond to the impact on the people and the land during the Westward Expansion of the United States.
Consider: what emotions do you see represented? Can you find examples of how it felt to lose something very important? Can you also find examples of resilience? What symbols, colors, and details did the artist use to share these emotions?
SS.3.22 Examine how American Indian cultures changed as a result of contact with European cultures, including: decreased population, spread of disease (smallpox), increased conflict, loss of territory, and increase in trade.
Located in Gallery 5
Located in Gallery 5
Located in Gallery 5
Cities also expanded rapidly during the mid 19th century. People came to the United States from all over the world! In cities like New York, many diverse groups of people lived very close together. Trains, trolleys, and streets showcased the many ways lives overlapped.
Look at the images below: Find people who are working, resting, excited, nervous, and confident. What are they doing? Where do you think they are going?
SSP.03 Organize data from a variety of sources in order to: Compare and contrast multiple sources, Recognize differences between multiple accounts, and Frame appropriate questions for further investigation
R.1. Cornerstone Read closely to determine what a text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
Located in Gallery 3
Located in Gallery 12
Located in Gallery 14
Listen to the song Poor Old Joe by Paul Robeson, a renowned singer during the early 1900s and the Harlem Renaissance. During the Great Migration, many African Americans travelled to cities in the North in search of new opportunities and equality while others remained and worked in agriculture in the South. How do the lyrics connect to the artwork?*
*This is an artwork about migration by someone who was an immigrant (rather than a migrant) but has overlapping themes for both experiences as discussed above
Left: Hung Liu (1948-2021), I Hear Their Gentle Voice Calling, 2017, mixed media, multi-layer resin, 82 x 82 in. Toledo Museum of Art. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey.
Located in Gallery 12
Located in Gallery 15
Activity: What Were They Thinking?
Immerse yourself in the world of Reginald Marsh's Subway - 14th Street and consider the variety of intersecting lives featured in the painting. Using the attached guide, write what do you think these New York City subway-goers were thinking at that moment in time.
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Immigrants have been crucial in shaping American history and culture. Many of America’s most celebrated artists were immigrants or the children of immigrants who chose to build their lives in the U.S.
Located in Gallery 18
Located in Gallery 18
Look at the artworks above and at left: Think about how these two artists combine images from American culture with historical Japanese and Korean art to create something new.
Located in Gallery 1
Activity: Celebration Flag
Mimi Herbert left half of the work Celebration Flag blank, suggesting an opportunity for viewers to add their own ideas to complete the flag. Flags are used to identify a place using colors and symbols—The United States flag uses 50 stars for the 50 states, 13 stripes for the 13 original colonies, blue for justice, red for valor and bravery, and white for purity and innocence. Use the blank space provided in the activity below to share how you would complete Mimi’s flag.
Located in Gallery 13
Contemporary art continues to address themes of identity, conflict, movement and our changing world. Contemporary can be defined as “right now.” All artwork is contemporary at the time it is made and reflects the social, political and personal impacts of the artist’s environment. Look at the works below. How do these artworks reflect on history as well as the “right now”?
Not on view
Not on view
Not on view
