Cut and Paste exhibition at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art , Edinburgh

This was the first ever survey exhibition of collage. It gave a comprehensive review of collage in all its forms, including cut, glued, stitched and stapled paper, photography, stickers, scrapbooks, botanical specimens, patchwork, Cubist and Surrealist artworks, films and more. The exhibition started with books published in the 1500s with flaps stuck into them and ended with digital photographs made a few months ago.

Kurt Schwitters
Mz 229:Hot Water, 1921

Hannah Hoch

Untitled, 1924

Hannah Hoch

Astronomie, 1922

Jacques Villegle

The Jazz Men, 1961

Peter Blake

Museum of the Colour White 2, 2001

I left the exhibition with a real desire to do some cutting and sticking! It seems that technological developments have had a major impact on the history of collage and the direction that it is going. It seems there has been a move away from the more traditional means of collage (cut and stick) in the artists using collage in the present day, instead preferring to use photoshop or digital means of creating layers. I believe there is still a need for the more physical and tactile collage, and so I have been encouraged to carry on with the collages that I am creating.