Mary Beach & Claude Pélieu are Back!

My old friends Mary Beach & Claude Pélieu (who departed this mortal coil in 2006 and 2002, respectively) are having shows of their collage works in New York. Here is the info:

The place of collage in the aesthetic of the Beats is crucial, pointing to the attunement of these creatives with an emerging sensibility and style inherent in the culture of that era. The increasing omnipresence of television and magazine style presentation, with the move towards the instant phenomena, the hybridization of “high” and “low” or “pop” culture, the 15 minutes of fame, the remote control, the sound “bite”, is all well understood in collage. In such terrain Pelieu and Beach mined their material. Though there is a basic similarity in the raw components of their work – sources and styles – each takes a very different approach. Pelieu’s work is characterized by intricacy of color combining, care in cutting and almost a blending of elements, while Beach’s work displays a much more direct, almost confrontational sense, aping the conventions of the magazine style while mocking it. Pelieu cuts into his imagery to subdue and quiet the shrillness of the magazine ethos, while Beach works to actually amplify the clamor of contemporary media address.

You can read the full version of the piece here.