Metropolis., 1923. Collage, 29-7/8 x 23-1/4 in. (76 x 59 cm). Prentenkabinet der Rijksunversiteit, Leiden, the Netherlands. c 1997 Paul Citroen/Licensed by VAGA, New York.
Citroen compiled images of buildings from magazines/postcards etc to make this collage and was quoted as saying "Afterwards I tried to explain why Metropolis became such a success. Maybe because most collages are somewhat arbitrary. But I planned that, if you would paste pictures of buildings on a large sheet, it should give an impression of the way many cities looked like. It was a view into the future. It was certainly not just a silly idea."
This piece is rumoured as being the inspiration for the film of the same name by Fritz Lang. It gave me the idea to make a collage of similar objects within actual films, for example all the birds in Hitchcock's 'Psycho', or buildings in 'Vertigo', etc.
