Overview

Trash, garbage, rubbish, dross, and detritus - in this enjoyably radical exploration of 'Junk', Gillian Whiteley rethinks art's historical and present appropriation of junk within our eco-conscious and globalised culture. She does this through an illustrated exploration of particular materials, key moments and locations and the telling of a panoply of trash narratives. Found and ephemeral materials are primarily associated with assemblage - object-based practices which emerged in the mid-1950s and culminated in the seminal exhibition 'The Art of Assemblage' in New York in 1961. With its deployment of the discarded and the filthy, Whiteley argues, assemblage has been viewed as a disruptive, transgressive artform that engaged with narratives of social and political dissent, often in the face of modernist condemnation as worthless kitsch. In the Sixties, parallel techniques flourished in Western Europe, the US and Australia but the idiom of assemblage and the re-use of found materials and objects - with artist as bricoleur - is just as prevalent now. This is a timely book that uncovers the etymology of waste and the cultures of disposability within these economies of wealth.

Full Product Details

9781848854123

Table of Contents

Reviews

'A finite stockpile of Earth resources comprises humanity's shared inheritance with all other forms of life. What we are and all we own are fabricated out of this common pool. Even the molecules that comprise our bodies are merely on loan from the ecosystem. These molecules endure, but increasingly they endure stripped of their utility for humans and for the planet. Unwanted stuff is proliferating along with the nouns that describe them: discard, scrap, debris, rubbish, garbage, scrap, junk, litter, refuse, cast-off. Gillian Whiteley has written a thorough and compelling narrative of the role of trash as a source of artistic inspiration. Her discerning commentary has the power to transform readers into connoisseurs of waste.' - Linda Weintraub, author and publisher of Avant-Guardians: Textlets in Art and Ecology, published by Artnow Publications; 'Gillian Whiteley's well-researched contemporary art history is an important and scholarly book on the new aesthetics of eco-art. Trash, junk and what we discard are the real markers of our civilization. Whiteley sheds light on the artists who are tackling the growing landscape - the mountains and monuments of trash - of our temporary culture.' - Holly Crawford, Ph.D., Director AC Institute, NYC

Author Information

Gillian Whiteley is a curator and is lecturer in visual and material culture at Loughborough University. Her publications include 'Telling Stories: Theories & Criticism, Cinematic Essay, Objects & Narrative' (2009). She is a regular contributor to 'The Art Book', for which during 2009 she has been Honorary Editor.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available