Although Jim Jarmusch is best known for his storied career in independent cinema, over the years he has produced hundreds of pieces of collage art, the majority of which has been rarely seen by the public. Drawing inspiration from the largest medium of cultural documentation―newspapers―Jarmusch delicately crafts each work by layering newsprints on cardstock. Doppelgänger Andy Warhols are posed in a vast tunnel not unlike the depths of the Large Hadron Collider, Patty Hearst’s mugshots drift across Edwardian portraits, and a man’s identity is disguised with a coyote’s head: maybe he was a celebrity, politician, perp, or all three. In Some Collages, these small-scale (notecard-size) pieces not only pay homage to the documentation medium but are a reminder of how even mundane images can be reconfigured into work that is alternatively funny, scary and strange.
Jim Jarmusch is a film director, writer, musician, producer, and artist. A prominent figure in independent cinema, his notable films include Stranger than Paradise (1984), Down By Law (1986), Dead Man (1999), Broken Flowers (2005) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). Some Collages is his first book of collage artwork.
A small but substantial book bound in beautiful, thick brown paper is filled with almost miniaturist images composed largely in black and white and occupying the chestnut pages like a turn of the century estate sale photo album. But the clippings and photos in this volume have been interfered with, disambiguated, spliced and diced, and transformed into surrealist collages that are smart, creepy, witty and poetic – not unlike, say, a film by their creator, the director Jim Jarmusch. -LA Weekly, Sept. 2021
Hardcover
268 pages
26.5 x 15.3cm
September 2021