In my previous article, I discussed the way in which female artists rebelled, empowered, and declared themselves as legitimate through their collage works during the rise of Second Wave Feminism from the 1960’s to the late 1980’s. As the birth of the intersectional Third Wave Feminist movement began between the late 1990’s to early 2010’s and continues today, the question of how personal identity and social identity, or the way we see ourselves versus the way we are seen in society, connect and separate individuals in a group or movement and how the two identities inform or contradict each other began to appear in contemporary collage art. With the internet allowing the free flow of information, opinion, exchange, and debate, more and more of the individual sense of self is informed by others outside of our ‘regular’ social identity. These exposures to new ways of being and seeing the world combine intersectionality and individualism in ways previously unseen. Through the union of these intersectional, yet, fragmented identities, various contemporary artists aim to reconcile these many senses and constructions of ‘the self’ & ‘the other’ in their works and identities in an increasingly interconnected world.

In my last article, I analyzed female collage artists from the 1770’s through the 1930’s, (Part 1, here), and the access to creative spheres the medium gave women in the long 19th century through to the 1930’s. Now, picking back up in the late 1960’s and early 70’s, one of the most iconic eras of protest, counterculture, and civil disobedience throughout the world, we delve into the intersections of collage, second wave feminism, the anti-war movement, and the fight for abortion, civil rights & desegregation. The intersection of these events with the medium of collage would solidify the medium as synonymous with rebellion, protest, and social commentary as the world moves into the 21st century.

Most recognize the art of mixed media collage as an invention by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, or Georges Braques in the collage phase of the Cubist movement from 1912-1914, when they popularized the medium and thrust it onto the the international art scene and gave it the legitimacy needed to be defined as valid artform. Although the technique of cutting and pasting paper together is as old as the invention of paper itself in 5th century China; the beginning of collage as we recognize it today comes from much more unassuming place: inside the homes of aristocratic women during the long 19th century.