Untitled 1966

This collage was made by Marcelle Cahn in 1966, and at first glance it looks minimal, like a half-formed idea. Looking closer you can see the subtle layers of paper, the delicate pencil marks, and the two green dots connected by a line. I'm thinking about Cahn in her studio, carefully placing each element, adjusting the composition, and building something up out of almost nothing. The pale yellow recalls Kurt Schwitters, and the way he collected scraps and fragments and built them into elaborate assemblages. Maybe Cahn was also thinking about Schwitters. Or maybe she was just looking at the world around her, at the shapes and colours and textures that caught her eye. What I love about painting, and collage too, is this sense of possibility, this feeling that anything can happen. We can learn a lot from this, and from Cahn’s work, about how to stay open to surprise, how to embrace the unexpected, and how to find beauty in the simplest of things.