Frottage
K-3 Program: Frottage
Final Project Description:Each child will leave with one frottage plaque and several rubbings of other student’s plaques.
Description:
In this workshop, students explore texture, collage and drawing. In the Gallery, students learn about frottage, the technique of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface through the work of artist Mark Clintberg. Back in our studios, students will make their own frottage plaques using foam plates, cardboard and other textured collage materials. The students will take rubbings of each other's plaques with various materials and, if time allows, elaborate on one or two of their rubbings to create a drawing from the textures.
Creation & Analysis:
Finish your gallery tour at Mark Clintberg’s Frottage and have some discussion about his practice.
Demonstrate how they can use pencil and paper to make a rubbing. What part does the pencil show up on? The part that goes down or up? Let the kids feel the plaques and make rubbings of it.
· What we just did is called frottage. Give some history of Frottage.
“The technique was developed by Max Ernst in drawings made from 1925. Frottage is the French word for rubbing. Ernst was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing. The patterns of the graining suggested strange images to him. From 1925 he captured these by laying sheets of paper on the floor and then rubbing over them with a soft pencil. The results suggest mysterious forests peopled with bird-like creatures and Ernst published a collection of these drawings in 1926 titled Histoire Naturelle (natural history).”
The Tate, “Art Term – Frottage” http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/frottage
· Show them some of his pictures and identify the areas where Frottage was used. How did he turn textures into images? A combination of drawing and cut up textures.
o How is it similar to Clintberg’s work? How is it different?
Ask the kids to compare two of the rubbings that they have made:
· Are they the same as the original? As each other? No? How are they different?
· Mark Clintberg is an art historian as well as an artist. Who knows what an art historian does? They study art work. – They do research into artists, art work and when they we’re created and talk about why they are important, or what they say about the artist, or time when it was made. Do you think that Clintberg knew about Max Ernst? Why or Why not?
· In his practice as an artist Clintberg brings in the idea that art can “frottage” against the viewer creating a unique image:
”leaving an impression that is ghostly, faint, but nonetheless constructed from the stimulus of the image. . . . what we feel from the [artwork], as viewers arrives through a kind of frottage.” – Clintberg, “Frottage: Part Three”, blackflash.ca
· Clintberg is stating that as a viewer and an art historian the process of looking at an image and having it affect you is similar to when we do frottage. Everyone has a slightly different version of the artwork.
If you think they can handle it – talk about this quote (Maybe not with K/1s)
“[W]hen I encounter and research artworks, I effectively take a rubbing or impression of that practice, and there is a record– an interpretation– that is created. What I have argued elsewhere is that my own subjective state is the surface material that receives the impression of the artwork in question.”
In his art historical research he is creating an interpretation of the artwork that is based on his own knowledge and experiences.
“With a frottage drawing, the particular paper, mark-making tool, and amount of pressure influences the appearance of the facsimile that is produced.”
The same things happens when we frottage an object. Every time we do it will be a bit different.
“Rather than attempting to create an objectively accurate facsimile, the methodology of frottage instead proposes that my research is produced by a meeting, a rubbing up, between my subjectivity and the creation of another person.”
Instead of trying to be objective in his research, he embraces the fact that his interpretation depends on his previous knowledge and experiences and that translates into an interest in frottage in his personal art practice.
– Clintberg, “On Frottage and Other Queer Feelings,” nomorepotlucks.org
· If you have time, look at another one of the works and have kids share what it makes them think of or how it makes them feel – Does everyone have the same reaction?
· Settle the students into the studio. We are going to create our own frottage plaque! To do that, we will create an image using textures. Show them an example frottage plaque.
· Make a sketch of what you want your image to look like. We make sketches quickly, so you have 5 minutes to do this.
· Then take sample rubbings of each of the materials to decide what textures you want to use for the different parts of your image. Hand out some of the materials and pieces of newsprint in groups of 2-3 students so they can take sample rubbings.
· Demonstrate how to attach different textures to the plaque so they can do it as well. Limit to things that can be stuck on with a glue stick or tape. Allow the students time to make the plaques.
· Once the plaques are finished tape them to the front of the table in their spots. Give the kids 5 sheets of paper and get helpers to write their names on them. Show the kids how to do a rubbing again and have them use graphite to frottage using each other’s plaques with 2 pieces of paper. After 5 minutes introduce a new material and have them try it, repeat with other materials. Hand out more paper if needed.
· Get the kids to tidy up, put materials away and return to seats. Talk about how textures can be made into different images. Have some of the kids share what they drew from their rubbings and see if you can compare different end results from the same rubbings.
· IF EXTRA TIME
Have the kids choose one or two of their rubbings to turn into bigger images. Allow them to change materials to make their drawings and encourage the idea of turning what they see into something greater.
Duration:
120 minutes in the studio and gallery – Gallery: 30 min on tour, 15 min on discussion at Frottage, Studio: 15 minutes Intro & Sketch time, 20 min to build plaque, 15 min to rub, 10 min wrap up and discussion
Vocabulary
Frottage
Texture
Rubbing
Art Historian
Materials:
Plaque material – Black Bristol
Corrugated cardboard
Foam Plates
Textured paper
Twine
Pipe cleaners
Fabric/Felt
Tape
Glue sticks
Graphite sticks
Charcoal
Soft pastels
Pencil crayons
Newsprint
Look & Discuss:
MAKE SURE STUDENTS PUT THEIR NAMES ON THEIR work! This is important.
How has this activity made them think about things differently? Can texture be represented in a variety of ways? Why do people see art differently? When you are studying art is the emotional reaction it inspires in the viewer, or researcher an important part of the artwork to study? Why or Why not?
Prep:
Bring 1 or 2 Images of Max Ernst’s Historie Naturelle into the exhibition to look at
Cut paper, prepare graphite, soft pastels, charcoal and pencil crayons
Prepare materials to build plaque set up on table.
RESOURCES
Web
Cargo Collective. “Frottage.” http://cargocollective.com/markclintbergcom/Frottage
Clintberg, Mark. “Frottage: Love Affairs in Photography, Part One.” BlackFlash.ca
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxpq1ic1nznfd6j/FROTTAGE%20PART%201.pdf
Clintberg, Mark. “Frottage: Love Affairs in Photography, Part Two.” BlackFlash.ca
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xghli2at58vkdl3/Frottage2.pdf
Clintberg, Mark. “Frottage: Love Affairs in Photography, Part Three.” BlackFlash.ca
https://www.dropbox.com/s/my3c3iican444s5/Frottage3.pdf
Clintberg, Mark & Davies, John. “On Frottage and Other Queer Feelings.” No More Potlucks.
http://nomorepotlucks.org/site/on-frottage-and-other-queer-feelings-mark-clintberg-jon-davies/
Encyclopædia Britannica. “Automatism” https://www.britannica.com/art/automatism-art
Friedman, Samantha. “Max Ernst.” Museum of Modern Art Website
https://www.moma.org/artists/1752?locale=en#works
The Tate, “Art Term – Frottage” http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/frottage
Zur Loye, Tobias Percival. “A History of Natural History: Max Ernst’s Histoire Naturelle, Frottage, and
Surrealist Automatism.” Thesis. June 2010. Accessed at https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/10700/ZurLoye_Tobias_Percival_ma2010sp.pdf?sequence=1