With new releases from Range Life Records in the wings, label owner Zach Hangauer is hanging up some art of his own

Perched on one of the tall chairs on the patio of Pachamama’s in downtown Lawrence, wiry Zach Hangauer seems unassuming in his T-shirt and pinstriped pants.

But, as befits someone bubbling over with creativity, aesthetic matters occupy the mind of this owner of Range Life Records.

In fact, his affinity for certain images bearing a faded-color quality, and capturing someone or something iconic (or ironic), turned into a little obsession about a decade ago. That’s how long Hangauer has been collecting old magazines — Life, Look, McCall’s and Holiday, his favorite — and tearing out the pages to make collages.

Photoshop and the Internet make the digital juxtaposition of contradictory images simple to both produce and disseminate, but Hangauer’s methods are old-school. By hand, he’ll cut out a 20th-century Playboy model and paste her in the middle of a bourgeois cocktail party, right next to the burners of a brand-new stove.

“It’s one of those things that really just is something I enjoy doing myself,” Hangauer says of his creations. “I’ve put them up on my own walls — tacked them up and changed them around.”

Starting Saturday, Hangauer’s hobby goes public for the first time in an exhibit at Wonder Fair Art Gallery, at 803 Massachusetts in Lawrence. With a title that collages the artist’s name, Zaguar Collages features some 60 original Hangauer pieces.

Wonder Fair is a downtown gallery that in its first year has given a lot of local artists recognition. Range Life Records’ graphic designer, Jeffrey Isom, will have an exhibition there soon.

In explaining his work, Hangauer borrows a musical term — remix — to describe his process of saying something new by using materials that already exist. The effects of his efforts are sometimes startling, sometimes subtle and sometimes downright puzzling. Examples: a military ad reading Maybe you can be one of us placed directly beneath a black-and-white image of an angry protester using an American flag on a pole to point at something just off-camera; a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich above the copy for a McDonald’s burger; late-life Elvis Presley kneeling in his white suit below the announcement, You may have already won $29,990.00 cash prize.

Considering Hangauer’s ties to the music industry, it’s a little surprising that his collages so rarely incorporate musicians or instruments. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, however, show up frequently.

“I don’t know why it makes me feel so empowered to fuck with the Reagans,” Hangauer says. “It’s something about the way they were treated. They’re so adored in these magazines. There’s a movie-star element.” For the 32-year-old liberal, putting Ronald Reagan’s head atop Mike Tyson’s sweaty neck and shoulders feels like “trying to create a justice out of injustice” — or maybe just illustrating a truth.

Self-conscious about the simplicity of what he does, Hangauer hesitates to embrace the label of artist. “You can do it with nothing but paper and your damn self,” he says. But he recognizes that being able to visualize a remixed magazine page does require a certain talent. You can’t just slap any two images together and get a meaningful effect.

Still, Hangauer can hardly fathom the notion that someone might come to his show and want to purchase one of his collages. However, they will be for sale, in a way. Some of his best recontextualized magazine pages have been scanned and collated into a new magazine — 48 full-color pages for $20.

Hangauer’s record label will have new things to sell soon, too.

After months of “participating in the existential angst of the industry” and the consequent near stasis, Hangauer says Range Life is poised to release a series of singles from Lawrence freak-folk act White Flight, following up the group’s 2007 self-titled debut (released on CD). Putting out the songs individually, as opposed to all at once on an EP or album, gives the music its due, Hangauer says. And it’s a nontraditional approach at a time when the same old tricks aren’t working in the music business.

However, the sophomore effort from Fourth of July, also to come down the Range Life pipeline in the coming months, probably won’t be released in pieces. For the label, a plan for surviving the tough times means identifying the best ways to promote each product.

You might call it the collage of music and marketing.