Mixed media is something recent in Art history. One of the first attempts to mix different materials happened in Cubism. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques experienced mixing painting and usage of different materials (usually newspapers, posters, or banners patches). They aimed to represent reality and considered these materials modernity’s symbols. This technique was called Collage.
Another similar attempt, but in this case in tridimensional pieces of art, was the Assemblage, which was widely used in may other Modernist Movements, like Futurism, Constructivism, even in Cubism and Surrealism.
These two techniques were adopted by Post-Modernist Movements (the ones that arised after the second world war, accordingly to some art critics). Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Home So Different, So Appealing? (1956) is considered the first Pop Art artwork in Art History. The British artist Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) used collage to compose this art piece that influenced even Andy Warhol and other Pop Art artists.
Pop Art had unveiled social criticism, just like the Italian movement Art Povera (Poor Art in English). Michelangelo Pistoletto’s (1933) Venus of the Rags (1967) is an example of assemblage. He used an ordinary Venus of Milo, bought in an ornament store, and displayed with its back turned to the audience and stuck in the middle of a pile of rags.
In Contemporary Art we have a massive variety of mixed media options in painting. Instalations, which are artworks that use an expanded field and invade galleries spaces, gave artists the opportunities to mix the traditional art techniques (like painting and sculpture) with videos, graffitis, and among other subverted materials. The contemporary artists aim to discuss art history, but also want to subvert art per se.
