Mixed-Media

Works that combine two or more materials or techniques, such as paint with collage, found objects, textile, photography or video.

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About

Artists have always combined materials: medieval altarpieces joined carved wood, gold leaf and paint, and Kongo power figures bring together wood, nails, mirror glass and medicinal substances. The modern idea of mixed media begins with Cubist collage. Pablo Picasso glued printed oilcloth to canvas and framed the oval with rope in Still Life with Chair Caning (1912), and after the First World War Kurt Schwitters built his Merz pictures from tickets, wood and wire.

After 1950 the range widened again. Robert Rauschenberg's Combines brought a stuffed goat, a quilt and a pillow into contact with paint, and Edward and Nancy Kienholz built walk-in tableaux from furniture, cast figures and scrap. Wangechi Mutu layers magazine cut-outs, ink, glitter and paint into hybrid figures. The interest often lies at the joins, where a printed image gives way to a brushstroke, or an object pushes out of the picture plane into real space.