The Rose

The Rose is a compendium of 44 contemporary artists working in or around the medium of collage compiled by Justine Kurland, with editorial support from Sarah Miller Meigs and Libby Werbel. With a sprawling and loose interpretation of what collage is and has been, this book explores the notion of collage as a model or pathway for artists to re-contextualize and reframe all that we know. Kurland presents an argument that collage is inherently political and in fact contradictory. She asks us to consider collage as an action: breaking things apart, centering the margins, and forging new structures. Kurland proposes: "Collage counters violence with violence; it cuts, rips, and rends apart, necessitating the reparative act of gluing, binding, and assembling things into a new unity¿The artists in The Rose source archival materials, family albums, and vernacular imagery, disrupting the structuring of knowledge and power. They use photography, paint, scraps of paper, fabric, video, ceramics, string, and text as tools for survival, technologies for world-building, and a means of radical deprogramming." With full color plates of artwork from each artist along with Kurland's writing contextualizing its place in the canon, this book serves as historic re-telling of art history within the context of collage and the artists on the edge of the medium.Featuring artwork from: Ruth Asawa, Natalie Ball, Lee Bontecou, Vija Celmins, Philo Cohen, Jay DeFeo, Mary Beth Edelson, Tatiana Florival, Vanessa German, Bean Gilsdorf, Janice Guy, K8 Hardy, Leslie Hewitt, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, AK Jenkins, Baseera Khan, Kiki Kogelnik, Tarrah Krajnak, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jacky Marshall, Aspen Mays, Qiana Mestrich, Helina Metaferia, Shala Miller, Joiri Minaya, Rachelle Mozman Solano, Wangechi Mutu, Martha Naranjo Sandoval, Yamini Nayar, B. Ingrid Olson, Frida Orupabo, Gina Osterloh, Olivia Reavey, Wendy Red Star, Deborah Roberts, Sally Saul, Keisha Scarville, Gwen Smith, Pamela Sneed, Lorna Simpson, Lau Wai, Della Wells, Hannah Wilke, Francesca Woodman.