Jean Arp used seashells and blood; Jean Dubuffet, butterfly wings and glue; Bruce Conner, nylon hosiery and nails. Joseph Montgomery uses nonesuch provocative materials in his assemblages, part of the show Velveteen, now on view at Laurel Gitlen, the polished, new gallery on the Lower East Side. Instead, he uses what one would find in the garage of the average do-it-yourselfer–canvas, clay, lacquer, oil, sheet metal, and plastic—weaving, painting and affixing them on panels averaging 12.5”x 10.5” x 3” deep. Less noteworthy than the use of found, masculine materials, is the skill with which the artist successfully unifies disparate textures using high value colors. His work solicits a calm and restrained response uncharacteristic of a medium which has been disturbing audiences for a century since the advent of the first modern collage by Picasso in 1912 and “God”, the first modern assemblage by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Morton Schamberg in 1918—a work which featured plumbing fittings.
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