TIMELINE
Alex Asch – Pat Hoffie

24 July – 19 September 2021
CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE


For as long as I have made art, I have used collage to work through ideas both stylistically and politically. The collages in this exhibition have much in common with the art of sampling in electronic music; cut-out moments that may specifically speak to historical events or collective social experiences. I am drawn to discarded and discounted picture books, art history, the life of JFK, the Epic of man. The history of the world lies in piles at tips, junk shops and thrift stores. I love old atlases, which led me to reflect on the hubris of colonists who drew lines across diverse cultural landscapes. Images have been used both to support a given historical interpretation or to challenge received attitudes and policies.

I was particularly interested in the development of ‘early man’ and pored over the Time Life books on evolution, marvelling at the slow transformation of human beings. I have used some of these images in earlier constructions. Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, Time Life also produced an excellent series on photography, one book a year on the latest darkroom techniques and a wide range of photographers from photojournalists to artists. They were essentially America-centric publications and not without their biases. I knew these beautifully presented books intimately and spent countless hours immersed in their collective content. As a child I felt the history of the world lay between these pages. I have always navigated the world visually: the road to reading was difficult and sometimes painful for me and it wasn't until I left school that I started to enjoy its secrets.

Although I was five years old in 1970, I always think of myself as a child of the 60s. I remember this time in black and white: the outstretched arms pointing over the balcony after King's assassination; the Vietnamese girl running crying, covered in napalm burns; the dead student bleeding at Kent State. These searing images that showed America’s descent into madness were always in black and white. This dystopian kaleidoscope seemed to point towards our future.

I do not remember the first day of lockdown, I remember the uncertainty, the panic buying, the
retreat indoors. I am very lucky to live in my studio with my artist wife. I started digging around in the forgotten corners of our basement. I found a box my aunt had given me; inside was the Time Life photographic series. They were sun burnt and water damaged, their covers weathered and worn out, but their insides were still pristine. I was amazed at my familiarity with these images. I began to cut out details to create intimate collages.

My exploration of these discarded books was slow and meandering, accompanied by similarly old records turning slowly under the stylus. I tried to empty my mind while placing disparate images together, experiencing what Jung called Unconscious drawing, and only later exploring the finished work for meaning or context.

Many months later I returned to these collages and with the generosity of CAPO and artsACT, I enlarged the collages and had them printed onto dibond. I resisted the temptation to play around with the images digitally. I simply scanned them and had them printed, their imperfections enlarged and their hand-built nature clear. These enlargements gave the compositions breathing room, which made the originals seem somewhat claustrophobic. I discovered my images were narrative driven, and I started to group them into storyboards. Because I felt they needed more space, I added coloured panels, staying within the grayscale of the black and white photographs. By rubbing graphite into some of the panels, I produced a shimmering silver, reminiscent of the original silver of the photographs I had pored over in childhood.

At the time of their creation, I had little thought about their future; it wasn't clear if we'd ever leave our house again.  I wish I had recorded the artists’ names as I selected bits from hundreds of photographs. My appropriation of these images is somewhat problematic, and I would like to sincerely thank all the artists who unknowingly contributed to these collages.