The editor of this wittily titled book of contemporary collage describes the medium as ‘a way of controlling the chaos’. The idea that in the stillness of a scalpel knife and PVA something spontaneous and beautiful can be made in moments is the idea that all of the artists sell, and is what makes the notion behind the compilation so successful. The complexity of all the images we can remember is immediately reduced to something precise, neat and delightful. It is the language of advertising, but nothing is being sold.

The volume selects and presents in a way just as seductive as its medium.  A single image of a body on a blank page can have equal impact as many layerings of textures and juxtapositions. Block-like geometric compositions sit alongside fading colours and broken lines. There is no one success story, and the pages work together without the sequence ever feeling tired: it is simultaneously constantly surprising and logical.

The introductory history of collage was bizarre, because the work is immediate. It needs no explanation or positioning in time. I loved it because, knowing nothing about it, I could open it and be absorbed.