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.
