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The Art Is Trash.(Arts; PHOTOGRAPHY)(Vivan Sundaram)
Byline: Vibhuti Patel
Vivan Sundaram's photos of garbage make a beautiful statement.
Mountains of garbage have never looked more beautiful than in Vivan Sundaram's photographs. His exhibit "Trash," now on view in Manhattan's Sepia gallery (before traveling to Sydney and Tokyo), includes 15 large-scale photos and three video installations that depict the underside of the economic boom gripping his home city, Delhi. Used soda cans, soiled milk bags, empty yogurt containers, dirty toothbrushes and plastic toys mix with industrial waste products to create a striking indictment of consumption.
Sundaram assumed the role of architect and curator in developing the show. In his vast Delhi studio, he created a faux cityscape with the garbage he collected from waste pickers. Then he directed two photographers to capture the tableau from various perspectives and digitized the results, adding music to turn some into video installation. Though his process reflects the works of some early modern artists--collages by Picasso and Matisse or Joseph Cornell's boxes--his subject is contemporary: the detritus of rapid globalization. With the collected garbage, he built miniature landfills and precarious towers that tumble repeatedly in his videos. The uncanny effect of assembling such ugly waste is that it produces esthetic pleasure. "Artifice is central," he says. "The work is meant to be beautiful."
"Trash" is the logical outgrowth of a theme that has engaged Sundaram since 1997, when he put together "Great Indian Bazaar," a show for which he shot secondhand goods, displayed the photographs on city sidewalks and sold them at nominal prices. For his "living.it.out.in.delhi" exhibit in 2005--which he describes as a "sociological project"--he photographed 500 waste pickers and invited them into the show's gallery to sell their wares." 'Trash' is more abstract, it's about the environment, it's about labor--those who work in an unrepresented domain--about how the city transforms itself at a rapid pace," says Sundaram, 66. "All good and glossy things are foregrounded, but there are others that don't get named. As an artist, I'm looking at the visual urban landscape to make beautiful pictures out of it."
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Source: HighBeam Research, The Art Is Trash.(Arts; PHOTOGRAPHY)(Vivan Sundaram)