What makes a collage an important and powerful medium?

Answer 1

As far as citing references, you may wish to check out the Beatles' St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club album and Frida Kahlo's "Birth of Moses/Hide the Baby" painting. There's no way to really describe them but to see them yourself. It's a nonverbal political, social and overall commentary with satire mixed in for good measure.

Collages usually mix many mediums together, photography, fine art illustration, painting, audio, video, sculpture and many graphic disciplines, even digital mediums today and they create something that is neither abstract nor concrete, neither pop culture art nor fine art. The engross the senses by their visual inconsistency, and draw the veiwer into being interested in deciphering the intellectual message that the artist is trying to convey.