Assembled

A fun collection of figurative assembled art pieces to inspire the reader to scout around their homes for spare everyday objects that can be turned into characterful assemblage art sculptures.

Assembled features 25 contemporary assemblage art projects by international artists through before and after shots as well as an additional gallery of inspiring assembled pieces. Each of the 25 projects is shown through the transformation of a group of found objects into finished sculpture with accompanying instructions on project inspiration, assemblage methods and bonding techniques. The projects are disassembled to their very core to reveal not just the easily identifiable elements used in their creation, such as a tennis racket, thermos, or bicycle frame, but also every screw, bolt, thread, rope, or wire used to assemble them.

The text accompanying each piece comes from the artist and offers a unique insight into the creation and character of each individual sculpture. These charming background stories describe the journey from seemingly random found objects to a finished, named creation, and are followed with precise instructions on how each piece is put together. A list of individual components and tools used completes the "recipe". The three-dimensional counterpart of collage, as an art form assemblage art traces its origins back to Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Marcel Duchamp who famously attached a bicycle wheel to a stool and called it a readymade.

The term assemblages was first used by Jean Dubuffet in the 1950s to describe a series of collages using butterfly wings and the genre assemblage art was created in 1961 by Peter Selz and William Seitz who co-curated the exhibition The Art of Assemblage at the MoMA in New York.

About the Author

Born in Budapest and based in London, ESZTER KARPATI studied art history at Camberwell College of Art and design history at the joint Royal College of Art/Victoria & Albert Museum MA course. In her collages and assemblage art pieces, Eszter uses original ephemera ranging from 18th-century botanical plates to communist stamps and early hand-finished postcards to create mischievous, arresting images that play with colour, scale and perspective.

Eszters work has been shown at the London Art Fair, the Original Print Fair and the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition.As well as working as an artist, Eszter has been editing art books and magazines for over fifteen years. Having specialized in creating high-end illustrated books ranging from small design compendiums to large-format luxury volumes on an array of subjects, Eszter has worked with high-profile clients such as Ferrari, the Saatchi Gallery, Cirque du Soleil and the Michael Jackson Estate. Eszter is currently Senior Commissioning Editor at Jacqui Small Publishing where she specialises in craft as well as art and design titles.