Eduardo Paolozzi: 'Lots of Pictures — Lots of Fun'

Paolozzi’s "Bunk!" collages are regarded as the first works of British pop art. They were unveiled at the legendary Bunk! lecture in 1952 that was organized by the Independent Group, an informal association of young artists. Paolozzi later silk-screened the works as part of his "Bunk!" portfolio in 1972. The collages gained even greater recognition in the wake of the 60s pop art explosion.

Taken from advertising images in a 1950 edition of "US Camera" magazine, this classic collage juxtaposes a plane and ice-skater in the act of taking flight — perhaps a comment on postwar American exuberance as reflected in the mass media of the time. The work was originally shown via an epidiascope that projected pages from Paolozzi's sketchbook, including his magazine cutouts.

This is one of the richly structured, brutalist bronze sculptural works created by Paolozzi in the 1950s. After studying in Edinburgh and London, the artist went to Paris in 1947 and developed a sculptural style that was inspired by the likes of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. The powerful sculpture again saw Paolozzi explore the interface between humans and machines.

The twelve-part collage series "As is when" was Paolozzi's first major print portfolio. The collages, from which these silkscreens are derived, were created between May 1964 and March 1965. The series as a whole referred to Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. This particular collage depicts Wittgenstein's travels to New York during and after the war.

Paolozzi was not so much interested in Wittgenstein’s philosophical work as his complex life. This was the trigger for the artists' idea of "incorporating multiple layers of experience into collage" and distilling them into a picture. "I had to find somebody — like Wittgenstein — to attach this idea to,” Paolozzi once said.

Paolozzi's "Bunk: Vogue Gorilla with Miss Harper" from 1950 is an example of a "readymade" collage taken wholly from a magazine that plays on existing cultural collages and juxtapositions. This pop art prototype was remarkable in the way it challenged the aesthetic and artistic conventions of its time.

This iconic Paolozzi collage featured the full front cover of the trashy American magazine, "Intimate Confessions." The work is regarded as pioneering pop art that actually features the word "pop" — montaged onto the cover as part of an image of a gun. An accompanying advertisement maintains the theme of flying that features in "Take Off," while the whole work is reminiscent of Dada photomontage.

"Parrot" belongs to a group of aluminum sculptures that Eduardo Paolozzi made during a phase of intense activity between 1962 and 1964, when he was working closely with an engineering company. Unlike his bronze figures in the 1950s that used waxed casts, Paolozzi was now using mechanically pre-formed metal components and welding them together into sculptures with a smooth, shiny surface.

Eduardo Paolozzi challenged the aesthetic conventions of his day by applying innovative artistic techniques such as silkscreen and sampling to printing and sculpture. The first monographic exhibition in Germany to be devoted to this artist in over thirty years immediately follows the Eduardo Paolozzi show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.