Three Collages from Paolozzi's Bunk
Bunk
Artists
- Medium
- Printed paper on card
- Dimensions
- Various. Approx. 360 × 250 mm
Bunk (1947-52) is an artwork by Scottish artist Euardo Paolozzi, created in the post-WW2 years he spent, first in Paris, and later in London. The work consists of 45 individual pieces, each created from a collage of cuttings from magazines that he had obtained from American servicemen in Paris and from east London shops.
The series derives its title from the word ‘Bunk!’, itself a cutout from a magazine, found in one of the pieces, Evadne in Green Dimensions (1952).
The objects that Paolozzi chose to extract from magazines include automobiles, products from well-known consumer brands such as Coca Cola, sex symbols, and characters from action comics. Some of the works are composed simply from whole pages torn from magazines. Paolozzi is said to have come to the realisation that through these cutouts ‘that, say, food and automobile ads spoke more eloquently and economically of dreams than any conventional art was able to do’.1
Paolozzi kept Bunk in a scrapbook and the series only gained traction as a cohesive work following a retrospective of his work by the Tate Gallery in 1971. This has raised questions on whether Paolozzi originally intended the work to be seen as a whole.2
During the retrospective, Paolozzi explained to the curator that some of the more prominent pieces were strongly linked to specific events in his life, such as exhibitions, his return to London from Paris, or to different periods of his work as a teacher.3
The series derives its title from the word ‘Bunk!’, itself a cutout from a magazine, found in one of the pieces, Evadne in Green Dimensions (1952).
The objects that Paolozzi chose to extract from magazines include automobiles, products from well-known consumer brands such as Coca Cola, sex symbols, and characters from action comics. Some of the works are composed simply from whole pages torn from magazines. Paolozzi is said to have come to the realisation that through these cutouts ‘that, say, food and automobile ads spoke more eloquently and economically of dreams than any conventional art was able to do’.1
Paolozzi kept Bunk in a scrapbook and the series only gained traction as a cohesive work following a retrospective of his work by the Tate Gallery in 1971. This has raised questions on whether Paolozzi originally intended the work to be seen as a whole.2
During the retrospective, Paolozzi explained to the curator that some of the more prominent pieces were strongly linked to specific events in his life, such as exhibitions, his return to London from Paris, or to different periods of his work as a teacher.3