"I make maintenance art 1 hour a day" - Mierle Lederman Ukeles (1976)

For the performance “I Make Maintenance Art One Hour Every Day” (1976) Ukeles collaborated with 300 hundred maintenance staff at a bank in Manhattan. She took Polaroid photographs of men and women doing routine jobs and asked them to discuss their labor as either art or work.

"Touch Sanitation" (1970-1980)

She drew attention to the maintenance of urban ecological systems in general and the use of pejorative language to represent “garbage men” in particular. Ukeles traveled sections of New York City to shake the hands of over 8500 sanitation employees or “sanmen” during a year-long performance.

on the left : Projet R, on the right : Module R - Stefan Shankland (1998-2002)

“Bin is a symbolic place in a process where objects stop being objects with values and specific use, to become raw material. Anything thrown away in a bin become rubbish, wich means a matter that weigh, with  a volume”

- http://www.stefanshankland.com/ -

Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center - Singer and Glatt (1989 - 1993)

Michael Singer and Linnea Glatt were hired as artists by the Phoenix Arts Commission and the Department of Public Works to provide the architectural concept design for the 27th Avenue Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center

Public amphitheatre with views into the recycling building

Singer and Glatt’s design invites public involvement and understanding of recycling and waste issues in an infrastructure facility that would normally be closed to the public. Traditional designs of solid waste facilities promote expediency and a non-distinct design whose goal is to conceal the facility.

- Contemporary landscapes of contemplation -

- www.michaelsinger.com -

Les Filles du Facteur, a non-profit organization, have developed the plastic bag as a material. Like a wool ball, there are crocheted in bags, baskets, pouches etc. This is a great example to follow to promote reborned objects.

- www.facteurshop.com -

Dirty White Trash - Tim Noble, Sue Webster (1998)

“Dirty White Trash” (1998) of Tim Noble and Sue Webster shows the toxic link existing between consumer society and human being.

As a Golem made of rubbishes, the light brings to life this visually complex and deceptive heap drawing the artists silhouettes on  the background wall.

- Noble&Webster sur PS1.org -

Foam Fountain - Michel Blazy (2007)

- http://www.galerieartconcept.com/ -

packings and gold-leaf 24-carat

Golden Trashes - Pauline Bastard (2008)

Golden Waste - Emmanuel Colombani (2009)

Gold and rubbishes as oxymoron in those works of Pauline Bastard in “Golden Trashes” and Emmanuel Colombani in “Golden Waste”. Gold is glorifying rot, like the Beauty supports the Beast, this precious material transforms waste into “value-added rubbishes”. How to change a disgusted-eyed into a greedy one in one shake of a spray-paint.

- www.paulinebastard.com -

- www.emmanuelcolombani.net -

Tue Greenfort's dustbins at Frieze Art Fair (2008)

The democratic idea of transparency met ecology in this project of Tue Greenfort for RSA Arts&Ecology at Frieze 2008. Thus was impossible to forget anymore waste still exist when we throw them “away”. The question is “Where is “away” ?”. We have to keep in mind that dusbins are (unfortunately) not black-holes sucking our waste up nowhere…

the paper balls of Ivano Vitali

outfit created with ""La Gazzetta dello Sport" newspaper - Ivano Vitali

- http://www.artnest.it/ -