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Entirely UN-Green Art? Are These Polystyrene Eyesores Or A Creative Expression Of Our Consumer Excess?

Posted by Elizah LeighUser517_level, Wednesday, July 15 2009, 10:38 PM

At the risk of possibly contradicting myself regarding a recent comment I made about appreciating all art, I must say that the following images of New Zealand artist Peter Robinson's recent works make me want to gag him with a massive spoon and then repeatedly clock him over the head with it.

No offense, Peter, but I don't get it.

This humdinger is called Polymer Monolith 1,  which I can only presume means that he plans to add more to the series? Oh, goody. More massive crumbling cubes of styrofoam. Can't wait.

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This one is called Minimal Baroque...also composed entirely of polystyrene.

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And let's not forget its sister, Vinculum, also composed of...drum roll please...styrofoam.

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There are so many polystyrene scuptures in his collection that I am in shock and awe, but sadly not due to my artistic admiration of his wicked carving skills.

I can see that his choice of the totally non-biodegradable material wasn't just an unfortunate one-time lapse in judgement.

Most of us are intimately familiar with the white squishy material -- after all, it is commonly used to cushion all of the fancy and costly consumer electronic goods that our culture covets.

Its solid counterpart has also made its way into every corner of our lives, from CD and DVD cases to throw away cutlery.

Although it is a number "6" plastic and can be recycled, how many of us know that and who among us actually do tuck it into our curbside pickup containers?

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This material is a massive source of pollution in our environment -- and yet, as I mentioned in a previous Green Art post, how likely is it that he (or other artist for that matter) yanked it out of a landfill prior to carving it?

What are your thoughts?

Artistic statement aside, is it responsible for a sculptor to use what appears to be virgin polystyrene (or any plastic for that matter) to create a piece of art?

Does this offend you or can you see the sculpture in a very different light than I am able to?


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  • Superhero_green_final

    Bob KurzUser2096_level said on July 20, 2009

    Personally, I'll never "get" supposed art like this. I'm sure that the artist claims that he's trying to make some grand statement against consumerism, but it seems like he's really trying to camouflague the fact that he doesn't know how to sculpt. I could hack a piece of styrofoam with a screwdriver and get the same effect. This is definitely not green art in my opinion. I bet he bought his white foam brand new and who would really want to waste precious space storing these pieces? The only reason any of his stuff could possibly be classified as green is if he donated them to a zoo and they were used as little cubby holes for animals to snuggle inside of during the winter.
  • B2

    Gabrielle SmarrApprentice said on July 24, 2009

    I agree..I highly doubt that the materials used to construct these pieces were previously used, or will be used again after they are dismantled. It seems completely unnecessary to use such a huge amount of non-biodegradable material to construct piles that are considered art. I understand that everyone has their own eye when it comes to art, however, unless the concept is worthless without using such harsh materials, these pieces seem completely absurd and wasteful.

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