Summary of Unmonumental by Laura Hoptman

In Unmonumental, Hoptman discusses assemblage in sculpture from the contemporary world, the 1960’s and makes references to the Dadaists. She argues that in each case it’s a product of it’s times.

She begins by stating that assemblage has brought sculpture to the forefront of the contemporary world, the assemblages vary in size, weight and appearance. Art can be made from anything, choosing what to use is an important part of the artistic process.

Hoptman establishes assemblage’s origins come from European experiments with found objects. The term was used by Jean Dubuffet to describe the juxtaposition of things not originally meant for artistic purposes.

Seitz organised “The Art of Assemblage” at the Museum of Modern Art in 1961. Hoptman disagrees with his ideas about the assemblages of the 1960’s, referring to his history of assemblage as revisionist. Steiz connected the assemblage of the 1960s to the 1930s and 1940s, which ignored the divide that existed between the two eras.

The history of Dadists, assemblage, Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines as problematic yet useful as a context for contemporary assemblages. Rauschenberg’s Combines, a series of works created from 1954 to 1964, combined painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg argued the objects in the assemblages were connected by nothing but chance and the objects became ‘mysterious’ by how their context was changed by juxtaposition. Steinberg and Marcel Duchamp supported the assertion that the assemblage was the result of chance, which was later questioned by academics. The Combines and assemblage art in general can be seen as showing the world to be a ‘chaos of information’. This era was ultimately dubbed the ‘neo-avant-garde’ and critics were dismissive of the artwork.

In the 21st century, it is impossible to be informed about everything because so much knowledge exists. The key difference between the assemblages of the 1960s and the contemporary era is that contemporary assemblages create a narrative by taking a part of that information, Not Sorry is an example of this. Many contemporary sculptors explore the issues of the surrounding world in their artwork. If there are visual similarities between the assemblages of these two eras, they are in the ironic tone of 1980s approbation. The creation of narrative is what makes these pieces culturally relevant.

The term Unmonumental is used rather than anti-monumental because artworks consciously lack the aspects of monumental rather than rejecting them.