Do These Sculptural Food Can Assemblages Deserve The Title "Green Art?"

Forget beauty being in the eye of the beholder -- I think that art is really where it's at.

From landscape art and spud sculptures to consumer culture photography and computer-plant amalgams, you could get ten people together in a room and ask them what they think of one piece and you'll likely get 10 distinctly different interpretations.

Collectively, Greenwala members seem to love recycled art because it demonstrates a deep streak of creativity and originality, but what about simple assemblage?

If I were to place a bunch of recycled paper in a pile and title it "Reflections From Arboretum 2.0," would you be nearly as impressed as you might be gazing at the work of Amanda Nelson or Jen Stark's cut paper arrangements?

That same question might be applied to the 10 meter long habitrail-like creations of Jacob Dahlgren, formed out of 600 empty recycled aluminium cans obtained from cut rate discounters such as Odd Lots (according to label colors and graphics).

The artist didn't just stack the cans in a quirky arrangement and call it a day. It appears that he had to at least plan his structures somewhat and make angled cuts in order to create metal joints.

I really want to believe that he ate the contents of all the cans he used, otherwise this is one of the worst examples of green art that I can think of (aside from this ziptie project or styrofoam monstrosity). Maybe not as bad as those two examples, but...

What are your impressions of Dahlgren's work? A good use of food cans, or are they better off chucked right into the recycling bin?