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TABLE OF CONTENTS
OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2014
On the Cover: Mac Premo, The Dumpster Project, with artist, Pulse Miami, 2011, Mixed media, © Mac Premo, image courtesy of the artist and Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York.
Above, left: Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2008
Mixed media, 94 x 35 x 35 inches, Inventory #NC09.014 © Nick Cave.
Photo by James Prinz Photography. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Above, right, top to bottom: Li Wei, Dream-Like Love, 2003, C-print, 122 x 116cm.
Photo courtesy of the artist. The Future of Museums, Engaging Millennials
Cambalache: Una Historia de Fandango,
Seitz hoped for a “designation not only more embracing, but also more indicative of the mediating principles which they demonstrate.” He then identified two commonalities of the vast majority of the works selected: “1) They are predominately assembled rather than painted, drawn, modeled, or carved. 2) Entirely, or in part, their constituent elements are preformed natural or manufactured materials, objects, or fragments not intended as art materials.”
It is in light of these two ruptures of artistic practice that contemporary artists now commonly employ any number of non-traditional materials to create their works. Increasingly, many turn to what might be considered “garbage,” “trash,” “cast-offs,” “detritus,” etc. Each of those words carries its own connotations and slang uses. Garbage is bulky, weighty, smelly; it is a heterogeneous mix of the organic and inorganic. Trash, on the other hand, is something completely different. It is light, more homogeneous—possibly paper, or leaves; it is not necessarily repugnant in the way that garbage tends to be. The recontextualization of such source materials in art making forces us to question our notions of the discarded as well as the relationships among hierarchies of art and value.
Bringing together ten of the most inventive artists working today, this exhibition will explore several of the more recognizable trends among those who consistently “repurpose” garbage or detritus in their practice. The themes of identity, index, and environment will be considered through works as varied as the Soundsuits constructed by Nick Cave out of objects collected at flea markets and antique shops to the meticulous display and cataloguing of the entire contents of Mac Premo’s studio in The Dumpster Project. The choreographer and artist Jill Sigman will be creating an installation in her international Hut Project providing an outpost of the discarded as a locus for conversation. In keeping with the mission of the Art of Our Time Initiative, Re:Purposed brings together artists who transcend traditional boundaries in both medium and practice helping us, in this case, to reconsider what is perhaps the ultimate universal human experience: our production of garbage.
