Wallace Berman - Artistic Career

Artistic Career

"His art embodied the kind of interdisciplinary leanings and interests that, in time, would come to help characterize the Beat movement as a whole."
-Andy Brumer

Berman has been called the "father" of assemblage art. He created "Verifax collages", which consist of photocopies of images from magazines and newspapers, mounted onto a flat surface in a collage fashion, mixed with occasional solid areas of acrylic paint . Berman would use a Verifax photocopy machine (Kodak) to make copies of the images which he would often juxtapose in a grid format. Berman sought influence in not only those of his Beat circle, but in Surrealism and Dada as well as the Kabbalah. The influence of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism is seen in his collages and other works such as his later inscriptions in-situ in Hebrew letters, and his only film, Aleph, a silent film that explores life, death, politics, and pop culture. His involvement with the jazz scene allowed him opportunities to work with jazz musicians, creating bebop album covers for Charlie Parker.

His mail art publication, Semina, was a series of folio packages that were limited edition and sent or given to his friends. Semina consisted of collages mixed with poetry by writers Michael McClure, Philip Lamantia, David Meltzer, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Cocteau, and by Berman himself, which he published under the pseudonym Pantale Xantos. Semina was published from 1955 to 1964.