“There was an exhibition in Munich in 1937, ‘Degenerate Art,’ which included work by Klee, Kandinsky, Beckmann and many others. The work was called ‘sick’ and put in the trash heap.” —Hans Haacke
Junkyard art
Treasury of trash
On the block
Trash has given us an appetite for art.
—Pauline Kael
The funny thing about being creative is that … I’d always go to these certain materials. I’d always be picking up trash and picking up paper and using it.
—Mark Bradford
The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
—Pablo Picasso
Beauty is in the strangest places. A piece of garbage floating in the wind. And that beauty exists … everywhere. You have to develop an eye for it and be able to see it.
—Alan Ball
I’m really into the recycling of art. That one piece of art inspires another piece of art, which inspires another piece of art. I really like that idea.
—Mark Foster
Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.
—Ray Bradbury
To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.
—Vladimir Nabokov
Just because you have a piece of trash and you throw it away and it gets hauled away, it doesn’t mean that it’s not affecting someone else.
—Majora Carter
I feel a lot of guilt about the freedom that being an artist provides. I ask myself, ‘Why am I not the guy emptying the trash, why am I the guy who is watching the guy empty the trash?’
—Jason Molina
Art collectors note: The creators of “Junkyard Art” would be embarrassed by the prices the stuff they toss in the trash might fetch at a future auction. All those doodles and scribbles, crumpled balls of truth and beauty, diamonds in the rough and pearls in the nacre, could punch their way out of the trash and create an embarrassment of riches.
Some stuff I don’t even put out. I’ll just be home, happy, creating something for myself, and then ball it up and throw it in the trash. It’s less about trying to prove something or get on somebody’s list or make a fan happy or make a hater mad or convert a non-believer. That’s not the case for me anymore.
—Lupe Fiasco
See more Picture Poetry
8 Comments
Post a comment
GODSLAUGH.ME 
They say that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and neither will part with it for less than $10,000. Great work Pepe and Cogito.
I have Ten from the man on the left coast, thank you sir. Can I hear Eleven…?
We know many artists that as we ask, “what if you are not satisfied half way through a creation…what is YOUR decision? ” Just about all say they set that piece aside, in their storage area…then …they will re-visit that oeuvre often months later…and they become re-inspired and complete the process with fresh visions…Intriguing. The small minority…shred, burn, tear up…
““what if you are not satisfied half way through a creation…”
Wow, Terry, that is the question. I can almost hear the first human putting it to the Old Master Painter on Day 6, “…In that case, Lord, what is YOUR decision?” Maybe the world that each human perceives is a creative work in progress whose creator may or may not gather the shreds of their dreams into a sack that holds them all together like a god’s sleeping bag, and from all it contains, dream up something divinely satisfying on Day 7. Thank you sharing your time and thoughts on this day of rest, Terry. Always welcome..
I am a great believer in what I call upcycle art, using what I have or what inspires me to make something new. I loved the quote, “I’m really into the recycling of art. That one piece of art inspires another piece of art, which inspires another piece of art. I really like that idea.—Mark Foster” Are you familiar with a book called “Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon? You might enjoy it. Steal Like An Artist – a book by Austin Kleon
Lovely to receive your comment, LuAnne. Perhaps art inspired by art is how artists propagate human creativity’s essential truth and beauty. It may also be how AI does it, but that’s another story.
Austin Kleon’s 10 THINGS NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT BEING CREATIVE score 10 on my truth and beauty meter. I am particularly in accord with Number 10: CREATIVITY IS SUBTRACTION. Not that I’m a Minimalist or any other ist, but Khalil Gibran took fourteen words to say, “We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.” If that assertion is true, only subtraction could make it beautiful, too. 🙂
Well, I had to get out my copy and read chapter 10. Delightful. It reminds me of ballroom dancing. I had to learn the bare basic steps which was fun enough on their own, then I got to put my own style into the steps.
oh, and the practice of writing haiku – that is a wonderful art of subtraction. And bonsai trees.
Here’s a haiku that AI wrote for me on the topic:
In bounds, we find wings
Constraints weave art from thin air –
limitation’s gift.
What a fun conversation this has been. Thank you for indulging me. 🙂
Was it not the constraints you imposed on it, LuAnne, that caused the AI app to eke out for you, from the myriad samples at its disposal, the limitation’s gift haiku that weaves elegant poetry from thin air? Iow, is that haiku not a Whodunit–or what?
Speaking of ballroom dancing, I have watched the dancing robots on YouTube, and believe any two of them could tango like champions, if so constrained by champion Whos from Montevideo.
Thank you for your indulgence. 🙂