January 21, 2014
THE WAR AND PEACE PROJECT
The
War and Peace Project, a collaborative fusion of literature and art, will
exhibit at Hampden Gallery Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst from February 23–March 13, 2014. Opening reception on February 23,
2–4:00 PM includes a gallery talk by project founder and lead artist, Lola
Baltzell, at 3 PM. The project consists of 747 individual collages that combine
to form a unique work based on Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel, War and Peace, The show will be
co-curated by Lola Baltzell and Trish Crapo.
Baltzell came up with the idea of making a collage out of each
page of a 1970's Soviet edition of Leo Tolstoy’s classic “War and Peace”. She
was a Russian major in college, and also has Russian heritage. Along with the source
material, other media was culled from hand-me-down books, maps, pamphlets and
letters. The collages are a mash-up of personal fragments and random bits of
printed detritus. Each day she posted a collage on their blog which included
the artists’ reflections on their collage, their process, and the book itself.
Over time, Baltzell pulled together a team of artists, who
dubbed themselves Team Tolstoy. Five of the core worked together every Friday
in their East Boston studio and she mailed pages back and forth to other team
members who lived in Atlanta, western Massachusetts and Berlin. In addition,
there were numerous guest artists who were friends of the group, or who asked
to be included. Collectively they worked together for over 2 years to complete
the project.
The
project has been shown in Boston, New York and Russia, but this will be the
first time the project will be shown in its entirety in the United States.
A
selection of the collages was shown at the Moscow International Book Fair in
June 2012, after which the entire project was exhibited at Yasnaya Polyana, the
Leo Tolstoy Estate and Museum in Tula, Russia.
Baltzell
and Crapo traveled together twice to Russia, first in 2011 at the invitation of
Yasnaya Polyana to plan for the show, and then in 2012 with 6 other artists to attend
the opening reception. They also offered several days of workshops in
collaborative collage-making to a very enthusiastic Russian audience. The
project got a lot of attention on Russian social media and was well covered by
local and regional television and newspaper crews.
The
War and Peace Project took over two years to complete. Each 5x7 inch collage
incorporates one page from the Russian text, and reflects some aspect of
Tolstoy's novel. Team Tolstoy aptly fits Henry James' description of what a
novel is: "a loose and baggy monster"
Along
with the Russian text, other media was culled from hand-me-down books, maps, pamphlets
and letters. The collages are a mash-up of personal fragments and random bits
of printed detritus. Artists have added thread, dried flowers, wax, inks and
graphite. The project was documented each day on the War and Peace Project
blog, along with artists’ reflections on their collages, their process, and the
book.
