OPEN Ealing Collage along with Idea 199 Structuralism and Poststructuralism

Created at Snail's pace by Matisse

Last night we had a session at OPEN Ealing that was a sort of 'add-on' to the Modern Art course the subject was Collage which Nick (OPEN's very own Art Director)  thought as a fairly 20th century phenomenon warranted a single session.
Collage is derived from the French term to stick and is now accepted as a  form of art in which various materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric are arranged and stuck to a backing.

Early example from Picasso

Some give George Braque and Pablo Picasso the credit for 'inventing' modern Collage but there other figures who used it through the century including Germany's Schwitters, Britain's Hamilton and a fine example is Matisse's Snail which he created in his latter years (1953).

(Interesting to know that there's likely to be a December play at OPEN Ealing with central characters that include an Art Director and a sexy underwear shop owner..)

Idea 199 Structuralism and Post-structuralism

Structuralism
Now this is actually Ian Crofton's last big Idea in his book but is idea 199 for me (more on this tomorrow).
 Structuralism is a form of critical thinking born out of linguistics in the 1950s, it centres on signs and symbols (I think semiotics is relevant and interesting here too).
Structuralism is defined as 'a method of analysing phenomena, as in anthropology, linguistics, psychology, or literature, chiefly characterized by contrasting the elemental structures of the phenomena in a system of binary opposition'.

Roland Barthes (1915-80) on the right here was a French philosopher  who was a big figure in the movement and gave  the example that wrestling is  an example of the hero/villain opposition.
Here's a presentation on 'Functionalism and Structuralism'

Poststructuralism
Poststructuralists  are sceptical...
Poststructuralism is about  theories which arose after the structuralist period in continental philosophy they  use structuralism but do not accept all of its ideas. Poststructuralists believe in the importance of discourse for understanding social life and question the idea of the self-determining individual, but they do not believe that people's actions can be entirely reduced to an external structure. Often, they study the ways in which structures can be subverted and broken down through their own limits or through ironic reinterpretation or reconfiguration of the structure itself.
A big name in the arrival at a  Poststructuralist theory is Ferdinand Saussure.
Here's some more ..