On my first visit to the Visual Arts Gallery, I saw art in many different forms. There were paintings, photographs, abstract art and physical pieces that took up the middle of the room. The artwork that stood out the most to me was the piece done by Olga Mercedes Bautista called Bonding with Plastic. This piece of art was created after Hurricane Sandy. The natural disaster left numerous New Jersey beaches and homes destroyed. There was a vast amount of debris and even garbage that had washed up on the shores of the beaches. Olga Mercedes Bautista brings to light the serious issue that we as humans have with our pollution and the destruction that plastic brings to the beauty of nature. The piece is hanging from the ceiling which was the initial reason it caught my attention. It resembles a tree and its natural bark, an affect that was accomplished by using paper mâché but the alarming fact about this art is that is created almost entirely out of plastic garbage like to plastic bottle caps and plastic shopping bags, that were found on beaches after Hurricane Sandy attacked. It is a statement of fact that garbage does not just disaster into thin air. Throwing it away doesn’t negate its existence. This artwork brings to the forefront of one’s mind that we have a global crisis that is literally not just going to disaster unless we do something to remove it. Susan Sontag writes in her books On Photography , “Photograph furnish evidence”. But in my opinion, there’s no better evidence in terms of art that something made from the very thing being discussed. IN this case I am referring to the garbage that was used to create art. Not only is it getting the garbage from polluting the earth, but it’s also being recycled into a piece of art. This hanging piece serves as a reminder of why we should strive to keep reusable items and always recycle when possible.
Bonding with Plastic 2019
side and inside view
https://seasave.org/plastic-pollution/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5MOLwLb85AIVBJyzCh3N1g_yEAAYBCAAEgLG9vD_BwE
The next piece of art I chose to review was Home Sweet Home (2015) Sergio Villamizar which is also located in the Visual Arts Gallery. Home Sweet Home is a collage of numerous photos. This striking busy Photoshop collage is a direct representation of the growing population and its need for expansion. The collage is full of bulldozers, and modes of public transportation, and worst of all the dieses of consumerism. There are many different little stores in the signage for a mall, fast food places like McDonalds and Subway, and even a Walmart. There is something about this collage that throws the fact that we as capitalist are ruining the landscape of our towns with our need for shopping, spending money, and having name brand things directly in one’s face. Things that do not differ in quality from its off-brand competitor are bought solely for the notoriety of the brand. The photo also shows the constant barrage of advertisement that occurs in our society. Ad are on 18-wheeler trucks with soda names, billboard signs for burgers that are being seen as one whizzes by it on the highway, even the public city bus has an ad on its side.
There is a quote from Ways of Seeing by John Berger that directly relates to our society’s need for excess in all things: “ It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves or our lives, by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer- even though we will be poorer by having spent our money”. The constant need for expansion and want of new and expensive things is something that society has conditioned us the consumers to believe will improve the quality of our lives. When in reality is does nothing more than make us less well off than we were if we had gone without that item. Berger also wrote that, “all publicity works upon anxiety. The sum of everything is money, to get money is to overcome anxiety.” This quote is relatable because we are always worried about having the best of something. to the point where people become addicted to shopping. When and if another person has the newest trend or item there are many people who will stress themselves sick until they have what that other person has regardless of if they need it. This sickness of thinking that we are not doing well in life if we don’t have more things or even better things than our neighbor becomes some people’s entire life aspiration.
Bibliography
Berger, J. (1972). Ways of seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corp. and Penguin Books.
Fenyk, H. (2019). “Bonding with Plastic” – an interview with sculpture artist Olga Mercedes
Sontag, S. (1977). "On Photography"
No comments:
Post a Comment