What makes something art? The perennial question. SVA grad Justin Gignac has been packaging NYC trash and selling it for the past decade. But using scrap and refuse to make art isn’t new. Think of Rauschenberg’s combines. Duchamp’s readymades may not be trash, but the larger point is about taking things that are not art and making them art – whether by combining them with other objects/images, branding them with a slick package, or merely by re-framing them as art objects on their own.
In the Visual Arts Library:
Trash, from junk to art / edited by Lea Vergine. – N6494.F6 T73 1997
Robert Rauschenberg : combines / organized by Paul Schimmel – N6537.R27 A4 2005
Art from found materials, discarded and natural / Stribling, Mary Lou -N6494.F6S85
Waste land [a film by Lucy Walker, João Walker, Karen Harley – V-P M865 Was DVD
To explore more, try the Subject Headings: Assemblage (Art), Collage, Found Objects (Art) in our catalog, Vision – http://vision.sva.edu
And on the web:
The Art of Junk: 7 Creative Approaches to Trash Reuse- Cultcase
Innovative Artists Who Create Art from Trash: Projected, Recycled and Other Amazing Art
Recyclart
