 Found objects, discards, throw outs
and trash, it’s not – It’s Art
By Robert Waddell, January 22, 2012
At the start of the 20th century artist Marcel Duchamp was the first sculptor to create a new artistic style called readymades that took found objects to create works of art. Duchamp was not interested in retinal art or visual style art but in re-defining the concept and appreciation of what art could be. The definition of Readymade comes from Andre Breton’s “Surrealist Dictionary,” which reads “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” Duchamp’s first sculpture was called “The Fountain” made out of a men’s urinal.
Fast forward to the 21st century, and in keeping with Duchamp’s tradition, now comes Latina Wonder Lee with the installation of her current show “Wonder Lee’s Sustainable Solo Art Show” running now until February 8th at Sustainable NYC, 139 Avenue A.
The added element of Wonder Lee’s readymade art is that she recycles objects like plastic cassette tapes and vinyl records normally non-biodegradable that would fill landfills and eventually get into the Earth. So, along with cleverly creating art out of what others have thrown away, the artist here makes a statement about recycling and saving the planet.
 In one installation “The Robot,” the artist constructs a futuristic tin man out of blue tape cassettes and a tape deck for a face. In “Remote Chaos” a television crashes through a brick wall. And in “Can It” five multi-colored CDs circle one another with the words above reading “Keep your laws off my body.”
In “Rhythm in the Sky” the artist takes an old picture frame fills it with clear plastic tape cassette covers to create the effect of glass. In her art she uses vinyl, plastic, metal and Styrofoam to create optical illusions of objects once used for one thing, discarded and now reconceived into a notion of a newer meaning; their placement create something new, a new state-of-mind.
 The work here is clever, witty and practical, as in “What’s the Word?” where a radio with speakers are surrounded by purple cassette tapes and a rabbit antenna sticks up out of the piece, homages to the wastefulness of pollutant plastic. The artist’s vision reconstructs the past into futuristic, eccentric and the surreal.
In a culture overwhelmed by the multiplicity of big and small screens and over stressed about over stressing over the future of the planet, Wonder Lee makes a political statement by keeping her ideas of recycling and conservation to a minimum. This is about the intelligent playfulness of taking thrown away junk and rethinking how it can become art.
Essentially, by telling a clever joke, the artist’s imaginative creations say that land fills don’t have to ravage the Earth, air or water but art can grow from what others have thrown away making all objects artistically biodegradable. Nothing can be thrown away without consequences; nothing can be thrown out without the possibility of having a resurrected life beyond the junk heap either to pollute or within art. The artist’s choice is obvious.
Wonder Lee finds herself in the controversial world of found objects; the controversy stems from the definition of what is art and what is trash and understanding the difference. However, today in a world that is not only non-biodegradable but a fast food whirl wind of the disposable and rejected, Wonder Lee’s work refreshingly states that things thrown away still have a shelf life. After all, what are antiques but very old junk?
The artist not only makes an environmental statement but she recreates a world where the positive and hopeful can be found in the discarded. In her assembled found objects she not only recreates the world in her own imaginative vision but her work is infused with the faith that the planet and an artistic culture will survive.
Photos by Samantha Morales
samanthamorales.com |
