Almost every trip I make to New York includes time with my treasured high school friend Deborah. She’s a highly regarded art curator and I get the benefit of her expertise—-she’s tried over the years to expose and educate me to the world of art.
This requires patience. Because even after I began creating art myself, I can still walk into a museum or gallery with her and completely fail to understand what the artist is trying to achieve; or who and what determines what is considered “art.” Sometimes I just don’t get it.
On this latest trip we never got to a museum or gallery; the only “art” we saw was at a street fair — perfect since we both have a passion for objects made of recycled or used materials; in this case, bottlecaps:
On a slightly higher plane, Deborah told me more about Vik Muniz, an artist who uses cast-off junk to recreate enormous reproductions of famous works of art—on a very large scale right on the streets in his native Brazil. They are done at his direction, arranged entirely out of rusty cans, old bikes, cartons—all taken from the garbage dump. (you can see an old tire on the right upper section)
Muniz is inspiring, intriguing and inventive–and doesn’t work exclusively in garbage. You’ll see why this is an artist I can truly appreciate: the portrait below is entirely in chocolate.
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