Unmonumental summary

‘Unmonumental’, by Laura Hoptman, is an article that seeks to process the evolution of the artistic medium of assemblage since the early 20^th century.  Defining the medium as a strategy to achieve ‘Unmonumentality’, Hoptman analyses the use of assemblage in a variety of contexts to prove that, despite various, inevitable paradigmatic shifts, the prevalence of assemblage can be attributed to the searing social commentary that it has the ability to provide.

            Hoptman consistently refers to William Seitz’s seminal 1961 exhibition, ‘The Art of Assemblage’, which, along with Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Combines’, serve as her key examples of neo-avant-garde assemblage artists.  These were artists who revived the work predominantly of the Dadaists, using juxtaposition to denote intrigue to otherwise quotidian objects. Hoptman describes the criticisms Seitz and his contemporaries faced from the earlier pioneers of assemblage, whose works were a passionate reaction to the horrors of war.  Although Seitz’s work was deemed mere imitation, Hoptman argues that whilst the strategy of assemblage had indeed been continued, its function had been altered to express a modern, antirational disillusionment with urban society of the day.  Artists such as Rauschenberg parodied popular culture by baiting the audiences with the randomness and disparity of his sculptures’ objects, creating the illusion of a narrative for the audience to attempt to decipher.

            Hoptman’s analysis continues to the use of assemblage in a contemporary context, which differs from its earlier counterparts through the organised and coherent links between the objects united in sculpture.  Whilst critics considered this nothing more than appropriation of that of Seitz and Rauschenberg, Hoptman once again finds a defence in the current social climate.  With the digitized influx of an impossible amount of information, a key aspect of contemporary art becomes the ability to select from the excess of choice.  This combined with the contemporary tendency to furiously analyse and reference, creates works that comprehensively and explicitly convey artistic comment.

            It is in this way, Hoptman argues, that the continued recurrence of assemblage has produced works that are ‘visually analogous but utterly different in meaning’, with an originally groundbreaking concept now a widely accepted means to an end.  The appeal of assemblage lies in its ability to incorporate reality rather than imitate it; the inclusion of physical evidence of the artist’s environment which exemplifies an artwork’s potential for incisive social comment.  Hoptman’s neologism ‘Unmonumentality’ describes an art making method that abandons the soaring ideals of traditional, institutional sculpture in favour of the profound rawness of the assemblage.