Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

/ARTS WEEKLY/VENEZUELA: When Recycling Stirs Creative Juices

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Oct 18 2004 (IPS) - An exhibit of paintings and sculptures produced with recycled materials has arrived at the Sofía Imber Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas after nine years of travelling around public spaces.

”Before the works were seen by thousands of people in shopping malls and subway stations. Now those people, including large numbers of kids and students from working class neighbourhoods, are coming to the museum,” Marian Krasner, the organiser of the exhibit, told IPS.

The Art of Recycling show is coordinated by Pronóstico, a group run by Krasner. This year’s exhibit includes works by 40 artists, selected from close to 100 entries submitted.

While the show is an annual event, Krasner feels that its arrival at the Sofía Imber Museum, one of the most prestigious institutions of its kind in Latin America, has brought it to a whole new level.

In Caracas, this effort to attract more members of the public into the city’s museums is not limited to the Sofía Imber.

The directors of the Arturo Michelena Museum, which is named after a renowned 19th- century Venezuelan painter and houses part of his work, are pursuing the same goal by having reproductions of the masterpieces hanging on its walls painted as murals on the streets of the surrounding neighbourhood.

A key element in the exhibit of recycling-based works is to ”surprise the viewer by using materials that aren’t normally seen in works of art, and would usually be thrown away.”

Nuri Morillo, one of the participants, evoked the age-old question of the chicken and the egg by asking, ”Which came first, the garbage or the idea? Sometimes you’re just walking down the street, past a trash bin, and a light goes off.”

”For most of us here, while we’re out walking around, we pay more attention to the garbage on the street than to anything else. I pick up trash and then work on creating a piece around it,” she added.

Elizabeth Navarrete is the artist behind a sculpture entitled ”Recycling Values”, in which coins, glue and tape are used to craft small plaques celebrating virtues like faith, hope, courage and wisdom.

The titles of several of the pieces turn on clever plays on words in Spanish. For example, the title of Marisol García’s contribution, ”Ya Ves?” (You See?) is pronounced identically to the Spanish word ”llaves”, meaning keys, one of the primary materials used for the work, along with wood and wax.

And María Cartoni’s ”Idientidad” (a combination of the Spanish word for identity and ”diente”, or tooth) was assembled from old dentures.

Derje van Dillewijn’s piece, ”Keeping the World in Check”, is a giant chessboard made of discarded CD cases, topped with discs transformed into tiny collages. The kings in his chess set are none other than U.S. President George W. Bush and deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Santiago Aguirre, who has participated in the show for the last seven years, remarked: ”Every year is a surprise. I never cease to be amazed by the creativity shown with materials that others would just scorn.”

Aguirre’s own sculpture, ”Troy”, is over one and half meters high and made entirely with discarded wood he found while walking around. For her part, Rosalía Salerno created her piece, ”Menina” – a tribute to Spanish painter Diego Velázquez – out of cardboard boxes that still bear the General Electric label.

”Year after year we raise awareness about recycling, about not littering or throwing garbage on the streets, and the public is very receptive,” said Morillo.

The use of non-traditional materials and ”found” objects played an integral part in such 20th-century artistic movements as Dada and Pop Art.

”From this viewpoint, nothing should be wasted, anything can be reused, whether it’s cans, nails, glass, wood, coins, pieces of toys, CDs, whatever,” Krasner said.

Pronóstico has organised weekly meetings between the artists and the public to discuss the potential uses of waste materials. ”It’s rewarding and educational,” commented Marta Szinetar, another participant in the exhibit.

The show is not a competition, and no prizes are awarded, ”which makes it extremely clean and pure, free of any kind of favouritism,” according to Morillo. It is also a way of ”opening up spaces for young and innovative artists,” Krasner added.

The 9th annual Art of Recycling exhibit opened in Caracas on Sep. 26 and ends Oct. 24. The organisers are also considering the possibility of taking it to other cities in Venezuela.

One thing is for certain: creators of recycled art will never lack for materials, because the downtown streets surrounding the Sofía Imber Museum of Contemporary Arts, like the streets of so many big cities, are overflowing with garbage.