Royal garbage

Richard

In front of the Royal Palace in Madrid:

Actually, it was part of an art exhibition. Go figure...:rofl.

Azzaro

WOW....How did the show go? Did the artist get a lot of raves? When the show is over do they move to a new location........??? Thanks for sharing that one Richard, made me laugh.......

Dogdots

....I was going to say they have very colorful garbage

DaddyO

Bales of recyclable plastic more interesting than the art itself or were they the art?
I've been studying the average colors found in the bales. Packaging
colors to attract the buyer to the product. Makes me wonder what the
quasi colors found in an average American plastics bale would look like
verses Spains. I am reminded of the many many thousands of individual
product purchases represented in those bales and the ones we can't see.
A ton of money spent to end up in dem bales on their way to begin yet
a new. Hmmmm wonder where that came from... I'm losing it lately.

Dogdots

DaddyO wrote: »

Bales of recyclable plastic more interesting than the art itself or were they the art?
I've been studying the average colors found in the bales. Packaging
colors to attract the buyer to the product. Makes me wonder what the
quasi colors found in an average American plastics bale would look like
verses Spains. I am reminded of the many many thousands of individual
product purchases represented in those bales and the ones we can't see.
A ton of money spent to end up in dem bales on their way to begin yet
a new. Hmmmm wonder where that came from... I'm losing it lately.

Studying the bales of garbage for an average color seen...I'm not alone

I too was looking at the colors trying to figure out what color is seen most in this photo. I see blues...lots of blues. In our bales in the US I'd think one would see more tans/browns. I may be way off on this tho...but I mostly see bales of crushed boxes then average garbage.

kdog

Strange juxtaposition there to be sure! Art exhibit you say? I'd be interested in seeing a wider view too if you've got one, Richard.

Richard

Dogdots wrote: »

I may be way off on this tho...but I mostly see bales of crushed boxes then average garbage.

You're spot on, Mary. It was recyclable stuff, mostly plastic and waxed cartons from milk and juices, with some clothing mixed in. Here's a closer view:



As for the "work" itself, people mostly just laughed at it, though a few were rather angry. The artist was nowhere to be seen. Here's a complete view:



My take is that it should have seemed surreal but fell short.

Sam

My first thought was that their garbage is much neater and more colorful than my garbage.

Then after the explanation, I thought only in America would such nonsense be called art.

I am having a hard time deciding if it's a good or bad thing to discover the rest of the world may be spiraling into a bordello of a semi intellectual morass of simplistic plebeian interpretation of expression, and call it art.

Sam

basflt

Sam wrote: »

My first thought was that their garbage is much neater and more colorful than my garbage.

Then after the explanation, I thought only in America would such nonsense be called art.

I am having a hard time deciding if it's a good or bad thing to discover the rest of the world may be spiraling into a bordello of a semi intellectual morass of simplistic plebeian interpretation of expression, and call it art.

Sam

lol3:lol4

Richard

Sam wrote: »

I am having a hard time deciding if it's a good or bad thing to discover the rest of the world may be spiraling into a bordello of a semi intellectual morass of simplistic plebeian interpretation of expression, and call it art.

Sam

I think that if art is to stay alive, it needs to explore new territory. Much of it will just be garbage--this is a perfect example of that, IMO. But that's what was said of Van Gogh, Matisse, Stravinsky and many others who broke the rules of their day only to become recognized as geniuses later. Most contemporary painting and serious music leave me cold, but every now and then something speaks to me. Here's the thing--even when something (like this) seems ridiculous it can make you reflect on what art really is, and that's a good thing.

basflt

i understand
we have lots of that here too . the art i mean

but,
IMO , your pic's would look better without

sorry

Richard

basflt wrote: »

i understand
we have lots of that here too . the art i mean

but,
IMO , your pic's would look better without

sorry

Hey, I just record what I see. I thought this was good for a laugh. Maybe the artist thought so too .

Dogdots

Richard the 2nd photo you posted with the doors seen between the garbage/recyclables...That's a good one Speaks volumes on which ever way people may think of the people that reside within those walls. Granted it's not their garbage, but I'm thinking the artist was thinking something when he put it there

basflt

Richard wrote: »

Hey, I just record what I see. I thought this was good for a laugh. Maybe the artist thought so too .

open paintshop and make it look like ART
there are a lot of ways


this here above shows garbage the realistic way :nah

lizzard_nyc

I like your shot as is Richard.
It shows the exhibit as the artist meant it to (I don't get it, but that's another point).

I also like the weird juxtaposition of the Royal Palace and the compact trash out front.

A few years ago NYC paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to cordon off an area at the corner of a street where an artist dropped a red glove on the floor. This kind of reminds me of that. It's a headscratcher for sure and it makes me question "art" sometimes.

Richard

I've been thinking about this--the art, not the pics. I think the reason it didn't work for me is that the wall of garbage should have been much taller, perhaps as high as the palace itself. Then it would have been very weird indeed to walk between the two. I remember seeing one of Christo's wrapped buildings in Chicago many years ago and the effect was striking, especially from a distance--it seemed like a big package wedged in between the other buildings. If the garbage had been closer to the scale of the palace the effect might have been similar.

Dogdots

Richard wrote: »

I've been thinking about this--the art, not the pics. I think the reason it didn't work for me is that the wall of garbage should have been much taller, perhaps as high as the palace itself. Then it would have been very weird indeed to walk between the two. I remember seeing one of Christo's wrapped buildings in Chicago many years ago and the effect was striking, especially from a distance--it seemed like a big package wedged in between the other buildings. If the garbage had been closer to the scale of the palace the effect might have been similar.

I see what your saying. I took a look again at the 2nd photo you posted in the set of 2 photos. If that's all the artist put out there...then it doesn't speak really. Just looks like a weeks worth of garbage for a place that size

Only in how a photo is taken can it make a statement of some sort. No one would know there wasn't more or less garbage around the building.

The artist certainly could of gone much further with his idea. You'd think if he had permission to do this...he would of done it on a grander scale.

NeilL

Palaces are conspicuous consumption. Garbage is conspicuous consumption, *very*, if it's getting under your feet! Or piled up above your head, like here.

A lot of garbage is containers of one kind or another - food and drink containers, packaging materials, even old electronics garbage is largely the cases that house them, clothing is containers of the body... A palace is also a container. Containers are facades, they give the product they contain "personality", think Steve Jobs containers, think Louis Quinze containers, think your jeans. Garbage builds into a facade, an edifice, an identity.

Yet, garbage is also anonymous, it has lost all connection with the maker and user, who are nowhere to be seen. Similarly a building like this palace is a relic of makers and users who have evaporated. It is orphaned, like garbage. Memento mori.

So, my little thesis in short is, "garbage" signifies but has lost significance, garbage is usefulness without use, we inherit garbage, find it difficult to deal with, and ultimately disinherit it. The idea of garbage is much bigger than we might have thought!

Maybe what the "art" is saying is that the palace is so much garbage. So much garbage that it is a "pollution" problem. Do we want to own this inheritance? What use does it have? Should we keep it or dispose of it? How to dispose of it?

A photographer comes along and takes a photograph... of garbage. Only the dates of the garbage are different. Both are material anthropology. Both are demythologised. Art used to be mythologising, now, with science, it's also demythologising.



Neil

Dogdots

NeilL wrote: »

we inherit garbage, find it difficult to deal with, and ultimately disinherit it.

Neil

I really like this ... how true these words are.

Richard

Interesting analysis, Neil. It made me think more about the importance of context in art. Certainly, you could take the garbage and put it in a neighborhood where it would only make you think that the garbage collectors must be on strike again. OTOH, if you took, say, Michelangelo's Pietà out of St. Peter's and put it in a subway station, it would still retain its magic. The interesting thing is that it is easy to imagine the garbage still working as art if you put it into a contemporary art museum, as you would still have the juxtaposition of elite and banal. So it would seem that there can be more to a work of art than the work itself. Garbage becomes art, but only in the right context. I think we've all seen things in museums that support this idea.

misterb

"Found Art" is from the 80's.. that would also include "collected" items.

I have a daughter getting her MFA in Fine Arts, so I have been to many galleries.

Sometimes, when folks go a little overboard in the creativity department, you have piles of garbage being passed off as "ART".

I did see a womans figure once made completely from car parts welded together- and that was interesting.

However- garbage is, well- garbage.

Richard

misterb wrote: »

"Found Art" is from the 80's.. that would also include "collected" items.

Goes way back before then. Marcel Duchamp started it all back in the 1910s and Man Ray and other dadaists and surrealists developed the idea well into the 1930s. Perhaps my favorite of the genre was Picasso's Bull's Head (1943), made from a bicycle seat and handlebars.

misterb wrote:

However- garbage is, well- garbage.

. I would only note that these pics have generated a fair amount of discussion here. Exploring the boundaries of what is art and what is not has always been of great interest to artists.

Flyinggina

I really like the photos - especially #1. The composition works. The subject matter is very thought provoking. I do appreciate the other two pictures as well for giving a fuller perspective on the installation.

It is great that your photos brought out a lot of questions and thoughts on the nature of art. You have done your job!!

Virginia

Richard

Flyinggina wrote: »

It is great that your photos brought out a lot of questions and thoughts on the nature of art. You have done your job!!

Virginia

Thanks Virginia, but I think the credit goes to the artist for being provocative.

Edit: Since I wasn't terribly impressed by this creation, I didn't bother learning who created it. So to be fair, it was done by the Brazilian Bijari Collective (Gustavo Godoy, Diego Bis and Geandre Tomazoni) for Madrid's annual White Night, a culture fest and all night party. Here's a link (Spanish only) for anyone who might be interested.