Messages from the Margins? Cubism, Collage and Controversy

In this paper we argue that discussion of marginality can be informed by the particular exemplar and changing positioning of cubist art. After introducing the principles of cubist art and the loose periodisation of analytic and synthetic cubism, we concentrate on the latter to discuss cubism's shifting reception through the twentieth century, and to introduce three different views on the causes, extent and consequences of cubism's early marginal position. We then argue that just as cubism may not have been all that subversive, it may also not have been ontologically conservative, discussing a variety of positions on cubist realism and representation that belie simple categorisation or periodisation.