Collaging The One Dollar Bill

Master collagist Mark Wagner will appear Jan 5 7 p.m. at the Heckscher Museum as part of its show RIPPED: The Allure of Collage. During the Artist's Talk Wagner will share his thoughts about his career and his collages.

“The one dollar bill is the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America,” he notes.
“Collage asks the question: what might be done to make it something else? It is a ripe material: intaglio printed on sturdy linen stock, covered in decorative filigree, and steeped in symbolism and concept. Blade and glue transform it-reproducing the effects of tapestries, paints, engravings, mosaics, and computers-striving for something bizarre, beautiful, or unbelievable... the foreign in the familiar.”

Mark Wagner was born in the rural Midwest at the tail end of thirteen children. He maintains a creative career in the fields of writing, collage, and bookmaking; is co-founder of The Booklyn Artists Alliance, and has published books under the name Bird Brain Press.

Wagner's work is collected by dozens of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. It has shown at The Metropolitan Museum, The Getty Research Institute, and The Brooklyn Museum.

His creative production includes work in many media: from writing and artist bookmaking to drawing, collage, and assemblage. Though varied, this work is far from eclectic-forming several discrete bodies that both stand on their own and link in nature and theme to their counterparts. In whatever media employed he has a tendency toward meticulous production and solid graphic presentation. “Usually fantastical, occasional surreal, and often interdisciplinary, I am satisfied only when concept and craft meet on equally firm footing,” he notes.

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