The art just doesn't cut it
Contrary to what the title suggests, this is by no means an exhaustive survey of artists working in collage and drawing today, but a small, young and largely unknown group of artists selected from an international pool.
This doesn't necessarily make it a bad exhibition, and there are some strong artists, but it does leave you feeling that there must be more interesting work in collage than what has been included here.
The impressive opening image is an intricate cut-out by Amie Dicke, taken from a fashion poster.
A predatory-looking woman, blank eyes suggesting a vampiric eroticism, has been cut into an elegant pattern of curving lines that suggests both the organic patterns of Art Nouveau and an anatomical drawing.
Elsewhere, Sebastiaan Bremer covers large-scale photographs with small, fluid drawings creating a watery surface in which images appear to float up and dissolve. Powerful too, are Matt Bryans's newspaper cut-outs of faces, rubbed out except for the eyes. Just as you think you recognise someone famous, your memory distorts it into something elusive.
Then the exhibition starts to tail off. Nicole Wermers cuts out pictures of perfume bottles and pastes them into an abstract pattern of geometric shapes. It's the sort of girly pastime you may once have indulged in to adorn an exercise book. Neither does Steven Shearer's banal collage of small photos of people posing with guitars rise above its third-form origins.
Until Jan 30, Tate Modern, Bankside SE1, daily 10am to 6pm (Fri and Sat to 10pm), free. Tel: 020 7887 8008. Tube: Southwark/Blackfriars
