As the machine age roared at full tilt in the early twentieth century, avant-garde artists saw opportunities to buck the past. In welcoming the new technologies, they created the art we now identify as modernist.

Assembling Art gives a vivid account of this American avant-garde revolution in the production of art. Challenged by unprecedented technological advancement, artists embraced collage, montage, and the striking juxtaposition of incongruent materials and ideas.

By appropriating disparate icons from visual and material culture-the...