"Vices Peculiar to These Eclectics": Contemporary Collage

In 2015 I curated "Vices Peculiar to These Eclectics": Contemporary Collage  at St. John's University. The show had three components, the centerpiece an exhibition of 50+ works by 16 collage and assemblage artists: Virginia Fleck, Vanessa German, Caroline Golden, Don Joint, Hendrikje Kuehne & Beat Klein, Lance Letscher, Paul Loughney, Richard Meier, Robert Ohnigian, David Poppie, Donna Sharrett, Katherine Streeter, Maritta Tapanainen, Mark Wagner, and Peter Lamborn Wilson. Pavel Zoubok Gallery was particularly generous in loaning work from their collection.

The show featured a wing with books and ephemera by poets and writers (Joe Brainard, Kamau Brathwaite, William Burroughs, Anne Carson, Joseph Cornell, Johanna Drucker, Karen Green, Robert Grenier, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Richard Kraft, Paul Metcalf, Tom Phillips, Ezra Pound, George Quasha, Jed Rasula, John Riddell, Robert Seydel, David Shields, Keith Waldrop, Hannah Weiner). A section on sound collage explaining the history of musical remixing, sampling, and mashups was also featured, curated by Ryan Hewitt Owens; it featured work by John Oswald, DJ Shadow, RJD2, Danger Mouse, J. Dilla, and others.

My thanks to the St. John’s University Department of Art and Design for inviting me to curate this show (Paul Fabozzi and Parvez Mohsin especially), and to Pavel Zoubok Gallery, Richard Meier, and Davis and Lansdale Gallery for loaning work. The exhibition card that begins the slide show below was designed by St. John's student Cory Bennet.