PLASTIC FANTASTIC
One man's trash…
The image of plastics is currently far from shiny, which should come as a surprise to precisely no one who lives above the level of under a rock. Still, a world without this besieged material is at this point nigh on inconceivable. And yes, that word means exactly what we think it means.
Toys, construction, medical, straws and cups, and cling film that sticks more to itself than what it’s trying to cover – all well-known uses. Art, however, is likely not the first thing that would pop into peoples’ minds when hearing the word “plastic”.
Toys, construction, medical, straws and cups, and cling film that sticks more to itself than what it’s trying to cover – all well-known uses. Art, however, is likely not the first thing that would pop into peoples’ minds when hearing the word “plastic”.
 Plastic, plastic everywhere: welcome to life, welcome to art (Photo: Schirn Kunsthalle/Norbert Miguletz) |
But the material had a veritable boom in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, which is where the story of plastics in fine art kicks off at the Plastic World exhibition in Frankfurt’s Schirn museum.
The show also covers the space age, the trash works of Nouveau Réalisme, and contemporary ecocritical expressions from artists who took what others saw as ultimately harmful garbage and melted, moulded, cast, and bent it into artistic submission. To paraphrase a great poet: Some might toss it and leave it, and others pull up quick to retrieve it.
30.06.2023 Plasteurope.com [253098-0]
Published on 30.06.2023