A brief history of the 20th century

From the advent of the age of the automobile in 1908 with the Ford T, the first car to be mass-produced, until the end of the Cold War in 1991: in this series of handmade collages, the symbols of the past, present and—why not?—future converge in the same plane.

Milestones like the Chernobyl accident and the assassination of John F. Kennedy are juxtaposed and reinvented to pay tribute to the 20th century.

TECHNIQUE:

These textile collages are made of printed fabrics that are then cut out and sewn (wool, silk and viscose velvet). They are large-scale reproductions of previous paper collages.
NOTE:
– 1986 (Chernobyl) presents a ballerina made of three layers of printed and mounted silk organza, separated by a few centimeters to enhance the three-dimensional effect. The ballerina’s tutu is embroidered and has an extra layer of silk organza which hangs loose to convey movement.
– 1962 (Death of Marilyn Monroe) shows Medusa’s head with the actress’s face (they were both beautiful but abused women) along with Rodin’s The Thinker with an empty comic speech bubble. The collage comes with the board ‘What is the thinker thinking about?’, which contains magnets with emojis and text dialogues printed on velvet. It is an interactive work in which visitors can add, remove or exchange the magnets inside the comic speech bubble of The Thinker.
The video illustrates these descriptions.

TITLES AND MEASUREMENTS:

1912: 28.12 x 40cm

1963 : 140 x 102.2cm

1980 : 120.23 x 170cm

1962 :140 x 99.12cm

1986 : 170 x 119.17cm