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05 Assemblages and Collages

By incorporating manufactured materials and everyday objects into their practice, Picasso and the Cubist artists (Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, ...) profoundly challenged the illusionistic and mimetic paradigm of art. This Cubist innovation, drawing in part on the popular material practices of the time (decoupage, DIYs, imitation of materials), marked a rupture in the traditional role of artists who, from then on, allowed themselves to substitute fragments of reality for its representation.
The technique of assemblage transposed the innovative ideas of collage into three dimensions. The objects employed were gradually diverted from their original meaning to acquire new significance. While such repurposing had already emerged during the Cubist period, Picasso began to systematise this practice from the 1920s and 1930s onwards.