“I would like to show the world today as an ant sees it, and tomorrow as the moon sees it,” said artist Hannah Höch (1889-1978), a pioneer of collage and, notably, one of the few female members of the Berlin Dada movement. The subversive group emerged amidst the harsh landscape of WWI, disillusioned with social structures, politics and artistic conventions. Höch is recognised for making some of the earliest photomontages – spliced together from magazines, fashion images and illustrations. Italian duo Laura Perrucci and Matteo De Santis offer a fresh take on the collage tradition. Bubble wrap, printed words and paper aeroplanes are layered over crisp, colourful portraits, obscuring and playing with physical identities. Crumpled paper, sweeping brush- strokes and glass mirrors permeate the compositions, whilst written messages are left for the viewer: underlined passages for us to decode. instagram.com/ellegramm.
Image Credits:
1. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, I Am Waiting for You Here (2018).
2. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Your Soul (2019).
3. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Your Best Side (2018).
4. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Reminder (2019).
5. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Reminder, Pt. 2 (2019).
6. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Falling (2019).
7. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, You Are (2019).
8. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Like Paper Airplanes (2021)
9. Laura Perrucci & Matteo De Santis, Bubble Game (2018).