Collage Art - John Stezaker

I have recently been working will collage. I thought I would look at the work of John Stezaker as he is one of the more famous artists working with collage.

Stezakers work is not complex, he often only collages two images, but they have a big impact. They have been so carefully selected due to the fact that they are compositionally perfect together. Stezaker himself says that he's at an advantage when doing work as he is always finding images. There's always something to do. (See here for an interview with him; http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/triennial/video.shtm) I think that is the great thing about collage. Nothing has to be tidy or finished, the work is always ongoing and I think I could learn from him in that, by working constantly, the art continues and develops.

He also says that we all create our own audience to the work, which is someone like ourselves. I can see what he means, as we often get reactions to our work that we don't understand. We wonder why others didn't see our work in the same way we would have seen it. I think looking at the way people see our work is important and I would like to try and gain some feedback on my work in the future to see how others interpret it.

What makes an object Art?

Is this Art? Pompidou Centre, Paris

So what is art? I've been writing an essay on the subject for Visual Culture and it's been really interesting. So many theories have been introduced on the subject, it's hard to know which to believe.
Personally I think art is such a difficult thing to define. I think there are several things which make something likely to be art, from being called art by the 'Artworld', being made by an Artist, having meaning or depth of some kind or even just being aesthetically pleasing.
In the end, the more of these characteristics a piece has, the more likely it is to be art, but there are many pieces which do not tick all the boxes and we should not expect them to.

I want to be surprised by art. The Artworld only works without rules and restrictions. We as the artworld are responsible, in my opinion, of making sure rules are not placed. Only then can art grow and change and stay relevant.

I have enjoyed reading the theories of Philosophers such as Danto and Dickie on the subject of What makes something art, rather than an artefact and I am sure I will continue now to read these theories and enjoy them, much in the way I enjoy reading articles by modern critics. I read them, but never take them too seriously, because in the end I have my own cultural ideas around art and they will be different to those of others, I wouldn't want them to be the same, because then our art would not be as varied and unique to us personally.