Rubbish

Axisweb Curated Prize

As part of my research for the Axisweb Curated Prize, I interview the artists in my selection on their use of rubbish/waste/discards.

Interview with Jeannie Driver (Part 2)

AB: What processes do you apply to/with these materials?

JD: The cathartic act of destruction – whether that be shredding, or impaling paper on a spike is a necessary part of the process for me. Especially if I am working form documents that I have had a previous relationships with- either in the writing of them or in connections to meetings or other bureaucratic processes.

Shredding is such a satisfying act – it changes the meaning of the paper for me, from the content on the page to the materiality of the paper itself – from a page to hundreds of snippets

I have many shredders that all have a unique ‘finger print’ often due to them wearing in different ways – having had too many pages forced through or how the odd staple may blunt one part of a blade.

I mainly use security level 2 and 3 shredders. Surplus Remains was created from the A3 folded flyers that were at first all cut into a5’s then shredded and then reassembled. This was aided by a group of artist friends who helped stick them all back together so they are in 10 meter lengths before being made into skeins ready for installation on site.

The works I create often involve many monotonous and repetitive actions. This is necessary to create works of scale that have a physical relationship to the viewer. It is also symbolic of the repetitive nature of work tasks. The work titled sur-plus remains is constructed from surplus leaflets from a previous event at South Hill Park. I am interested in publicity, and how it becomes a veil or signifier for the actual event. It is a virtual interpretation of something larger, that often in itself becomes the memorable imagery for the event.

AB: What context do you show your work in?

JD: Gallery. Although my first interest in paper was borne out of my Spike It project- where I placed 6ft spike files in to 7 different offices for workers to impale their waste paper.

AB: What happens to the materials/work afterwards?

JD: When used in temporary installations such as Rising Tides of Bureaucracy the same paper is recycled into other artworks eg, this paper later made an appearance in this interactive work in Brighton in 2011; Hard Graph, and again in later in Ubiquitous Materials in SHP. And most recently in Remains to be Seen “The security blanket of Beadle and Dom or necessary out processing of systems?”

Axisweb Curated Prize

As part of my research for the Axisweb Curated Prize, I interview the artists in my selection on their use of rubbish/waste/discards.

Interview with Jennie Driver (Part 1)

AB: Why do you work with rubbish/trash/discards?

JD: I did not set out to work with discarded documents- I started through my spike it project- I had been writing many documents, funding applications, reports etc when I decided to make a 6ft spike to impale the waste onto- this need was borne out of a need for a cathartic act. This led to the spike it project where office workers were invited to impale their waste paper. This then lead me to an interest in waste paper issues. The journey continued when I saw waste paper being loaded in containers

To go to Landfill oversees. I then visited waste recycling facilities here and saw the scale of the problem. For a while I became very excited at research on paper use/ waste production/ recycling etc across the world. However I have returned to using my own production of waste and of those whom I have a specific connection with. I have been known to visit some businesses to shred on their premises, especially at printers where I am enable to shred by colour!

AB: Do you have a preferred term for those materials?

JD: No.

AB: Where do you source your materials from?

JD: The material for Surplus Remains were the publicity documents for a previous exhibition at South Hill Park. This made the work site relevant. In other works I have used shredded paper form a variety of sources including, the waste from the Art Space Portsmouth office (where I am Vice Chair and therefore involved in the production of documents and bureaucracy). Other shredded paper comes from my office of past administrative work- on funding applications, art reports etc produced during working as a Creative Consultant. In another work, Mind Thought & Reality, I shredded a years notes from my daughters Philosophy Degree.

AB: What criteria do you have when sourcing your materials?

JD: Some of this is addressed above. I have a history of engaging audiences in my work. (This is an important part of my practice and I always choose as a starting point for my work a common action or object that everyone has a pre-existing relationship with. This is important to me to make my work accessible and to enable people to place their own emotional connection/ reading onto.) This means that through the process of making work I make connections with people – and from this comes many unsolicited donations of shredded paper or unwanted paperwork for me to use in creating works.

I have waiting in my studio a PDF document on Freud. I am waiting for a suitable and relevant site to create an installation with this.

Axisweb Curated Prize

As part of my research for the Axisweb Curated Prize, I interview the artists in my selection on their use of rubbish/waste/discards.

Interview with Livia Garcia

AB: Why do you work with rubbish/trash/discards?

LG: I work with discards because they would normally add familiarity and association to people. But at the same time, I like to break that association by juxtaposing the objects with other elements. The purpose is to bring new perspectives to the objects which seem so familiar to many. For example, in my piece Once Lost, I added a video into a found glove. The glove would have association to human and the fact that it was found on the street meant that someone had dropped it. It was abandoned and had a sense of loneliness to it. The video would, however, break the familiarity of the glove by bringing something new to the object. Having said, the video should also enhance the sense of loneliness to the glove, so they kind of work together though being very different.

AB: Do you have a preferred term for those materials?

LG: Found objects

AB: Where do you source your materials from?

LG: Daily lives eg egg shells and tea bags (they are the after products from consumption). Some are more site specific objects eg sea shells and sand that I collected from beaches.

AB: What criteria do you have when sourcing your materials?

LG: I didn’t have many criteria when I sourced the objects and therefore not everything that I picked have been used in my artwork. I do have criteria when I later turned the materials into artwork though, eg I would think about the geometry of the materials. Say egg shells are round or oval and so they work well with the shape of eyes. Whether certain things are aesthetically pleasing would also determine whether I would use them or not. And again, meanings and association of the objects would become important when they are finally turned into a piece of art. You can’t really strip away their identity.

AB: What processes do you apply to/with these materials?

LG: I like to transform found objects to make them interesting and to break rules. Showing found objects alone might not be all that interesting sometimes so I like to add my touch to them. I might apply other materials on top of the found objects such as paper, resin, printed images and texts etc.

AB: What context do you show your work in?

LG: Mainly gallery space.

AB: What happens to the materials/work afterwards?

LG: I would keep them for future exhibitions. Sometimes the fact that I keep them could mean further transformation in the future. The possibilities can evolve in accordance to my experience in time.

Axisweb Curated Prize

As part of my research for the Axisweb Curated Prize, I interview the artists in my selection on their use of rubbish/waste/discards.

Interview with Inguna Gremzde

AB: Why do you work with rubbish/trash/discards?
IG: After arriving to London for MA studies in 2010 I was overwhelmed by the huge amount of packaging materials consumed in everyday life. Some blue bottle caps were landing on the table and in a metropolis with enormous amount of waste generated everyday recycling some of them in the form of artwork started to feel almost like a moral obligation. The work being easily portable also was important issue at the time. So the size of the caps serving as a useful contemporary frame dictated the scale of work.

AB: Do you have a preferred term for those materials?
IG: In general I refer to them as caps and lids (other work is painted on transparent plastic lids), but the overall used term is rubbish.

AB: Where do you source your materials from?
IG: I’ve been lucky to have an enthusiastic friend, artist fellow Luisa Sanchez Perez who did the sourcing for me. The work could not have been possible without the great help of community involvement. Important part of the project was to recycle already used caps despite being given a logical advice to ease the matter by simply ordering large number of caps from the manufacturer.

AB: What criteria do you have when sourcing your materials?
IG: So far I’ve been working only with packaging materials which have short life span and are destined to be thrown out immediately after use. It was essential that caps being mass produced rather perfectly shaped objects give unifying finish effect to paintings done by hand.
The important criteria for caps is to be undamaged and not too worn.

AB: What processes do you apply to/with these materials?
IG: The landscape is painted on a card (a bit thicker than paper), then the card is placed in a cap, which serves as a contemporary frame. The only process I can think of the caps undergoing is thorough washing.

AB: What context do you show your work in?
IG: I’ve been showing my artwork in galleries as a fine art pieces, as well as in Contemporary Art Centers, which often curate shows focused on subject of recycling materials.

AB: What happens to the materials/work afterwards?
IG: Hopefully the cap gets a sort of life extension in the form of artwork. These small framed landscapes could have been intended for looking at when seized by a vague feeling of necessity to escape from urban environment in metropolis with dense population where nature can be experienced only in the form of parks.

Currently Reading: Vergine, Lea. (2007). When Trash Becomes Art: TRASH rubbish mongo. Skira Rizzoli, Milan.

Continued

Lea’s introductory groupings of artists using trash are as follows:

Artists ‘treating’ trash: Vladimir Vladimirovich Dimitriev, Rougena Zatkova, Paul Joostens, Varvara Stepanova, Alberto Burri, Antoni Tàpies, Salvatore Scarpitta, Andres Serrano, Claudio Parmiggnai and Giuseppe maraniello.

Artists annotating, pulverising and emphasising trash: Meret Oppenheim, Eileen Agar, Ivan Pougny, Herbert Schürmann, Gianfranco Baruchello, Joseph Cornell, Claudio Costa, Gérard Deschamps, Jackson MacLow, jannis Kounellis, Louise Nevelson, Louise Bourgeois, Franco Vaccari, Ben Vautier, Charlotte Moorman and Franz West.

Artists using the lowest ranks of reality and redeem into langauage objects that have been discarded, degraded entities: Robert Gober, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fabio De Poli, Michel Paysant, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, gabriella Benedini, Anthony Hernandez, Barbara Watson, Giulia Niccolai and Enrico Cattaneo.

Artists transforming objects into play: Picasso, Tom Sachs, Jean Tinguely, Richard Wentworth, Niki Saint-Phalle, Nam June Paik, Vedova-Mazzei and Jana Sterbak.

Artists transforming objects into lies and terribleness: Annette Lemieux, Louise Psihoyos, Barbara Watson, Cindy Sherman, Raffael Rheinsberg and Maurizio Cattelan.

Artists alternating with artworks and situation of ferocious irony: Tadeusz Kantor, Gerardo Di Fiore, Wolf Vostell, David Hammons and Mike Yamashita.

Artists making aesthetically or poetically unseemly works: César, Ettore Colla, Claudio Costa, Gérard Deschamps, Jacques Villeglé, Otto Mühl, Robert Rauschenberg, Erik Dietman, Piero manzoni, Carolee Schneemann, Fabio De Poli, Sabrina Sabato and Kcho.

Artists making cunning citations: Sergio Dangelo, Tom Sachs and Mimmo Rotella.

Artists making sculptural frivolities: Enrico Borghi

Specialists in ‘all full’, inventors of obsessive catalogues, of accumluation of minutia: Jackson MacLow, Arman, Herbert Kaufmann, Lewis Baltz, Alison Knowles, Mike Yamashita.

Artists dealing with the furious and psychotic or funereal, graveyard vein: Cindy Sherman, Andres Serrano, Louie Psihoyos, Catherine Opie, Tom Egil Jensen, Mario Giacomelli.

Artists dealing with the effects of subtle satire: Robert Rauschenberg, Vedova-Mazzei, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, George Maciunas, Gabriel Orozco.

Artists dealing with an adolescent romanticism veined with lyricism and small cruelties: Walter Dhan, Sabrina Sabato, Milan Knizak.

Artists triggering the resource of the narrative: Mark Dion, Matilde Trapassi, Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Nothing is footnoted or referenced in the book and there are no sources of Lea’s research provided. The loose groupings she makes in the introduction narrative are not cross-referenced with the artworks or chronological section – you have to make these connections yourself. The artworks section features work that I wouldn’t necessarily class as trash – Lea seems to be using a broader definition. She also makes no attempt to reveal her research methodology. However, it is a very useful starting point for my own research as I systematically enter each named artist into google to see what comes up.