Bricolage and Braconnage

 

The terms bricolage and braconnage may be similar in spelling, but they are not in meaning.

Bricolage means "do-it-yourself". It could also be considered as recycling. Bricolage in art can be seen as using leftover materials from one piece to make another. An example of this is when Tom Friedman completely erased a Playboy centerfold. Instead of overlooking or throwing away the eraser rubbings that accumulated from doing this piece, Friedman used them for another piece by arranging them in a pile.

 

 

Braconnage, on the other hand, means "poaching". A more friendly interpretation of braconnage is "borrowing". Artists can borrow ideas, conventions, and other notions from the past and present and incorporate it in their work. In another piece by Friedman, rings made out of tape were used to make a large circle in likeness of a rug. Friedman borrowed from "the placement and forms of the earlier works of art" so that it "registers as [a] cheap craft object and as a pseudominimalist or postminimalist floor piece". 

So although bricolage and braconnage may mean different things, they find common ground in that they both have a part to play in the world of art.

 

 

Information provided by:

 

Applin, Jo. "Bric-a-Brac: The Everyday Work of Tom Friedman." Art Journal 67.1 (2008): 68-81. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.