Summary Unmonumental Going to pieces in the 21st Century Laura Hoptman, 2007.

After a long hiatus, Assemblage/Quotidian Sculpture is once again at the forefront of contemporary art. Practiced by a wide age range of artists it differs in the approach from its predecessors, by its use of found objects and how they are constructed or attached. The use of Assemblage in the 21^st century draws attention to what has been left out, rather than what is being used in art practice. Objects are not simply being used for the form they create when juxtaposed together or the effect they have in situ. Today they refer to a new language that is immerging due to the technological revolution that we are living in. Audiences now read images the way they once read words. This new vernacular is adept at abbreviating images and words into an Internet language. E.g.: Laughing out loud= LOL = J

No longer is art history taught or learnt in a continuous time line but rather it spurts information in all directions like a fountain of knowledge. When we see a picture of a multi coloured Marilyn Monroe today we do not immediately think of the actress, instead we see the words Andy Warhol. With Assemblage today the artist takes this new language into consideration when referring to previous works, themes or movements. 21^st century assemblage is about a clear narrative based visual sentence. It engages the viewer about times now. It makes social commentary that is easily understood. No longer just the domain of the artists’ world and its processes. Each part of the assemblage has its own story and by placing them all together a visual reference to a pre-ordained and agreed upon significance can be strung together to create a statement. An easily recognizable dialogue about the audience and the significance it places on the every day popular mass culture that has become the visual language of the 21^st century.

Assemblage sculpture today is a personalized collage of appropriated meanings chosen by an individual artist. Like music dj’s they may take samples from earlier works, however these samples are used in another way.  It is taken for granted that the artist is aware of the original meaning however they no longer are interested in quoting the historical content or cannon. These elemental mediums in the hands of the artist become unrecognizable because in the modern or present day they have already been used and flooded in the mass market where the earlier intent was lost years ago. Today the meaning of each element has been clearly defined by the audience.

We are now looking at art and its histories from a new paradigm- we are in a  post- post –modern world that can no longer be defined, labeled or boxed in like its predecessors.