Plastic Entanglements: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials
Smith College Museum
of Art
Through July 28, 2019
In the 1967 blockbuster The
Graduate–certainly among the great classic films– Benjamin Braddock (Dustin
Hoffman) spends his pre-college summer days alienated and adrift. At a tortuous
party putatively in Ben's honor, Mr. Maguire a family friend, corners him to
impart surefire advice for success: "I want to say one word to you. Just
one word. … Plastics."
That line often throws viewers under the age of 60. Plastics
are ubiquitous–so much so that when we imagine a world without them it's a good thing. Plastic is so slow to
decompose that it clutters our landfills and fouls the seas and waterways. It
is pretty much a death sentence for birds and marine life that consume it, and
its very manufacture depends upon toxic chemicals and non-renewable petroleum.
In 1967, though, it wasn't nuts to link plastics to the future. Rudimentary
forms of the stuff have been around for a long time, but plastics as a commercial
product such as you know it is largely a byproduct of World War II. This made
mass production plastic less than 20 years old when Ben was given the word.
We know better now, right? Nope! We are drowning in the
stuff and the United States is the world's largest producer of plastic. What do
we do with it once we're done with it? One response is to use it to make art. A
new exhibit at the Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) focuses on plastic as a
"material." That alone wouldn't be such a big deal; wearable art
shows make liberal use of plastic panels, fasteners, shredded strips, and
molded shapes. In that sense, Dianna Cohen's "postconsumer mandala,"
a brightly colored bag, might at first seem little more than an eye-catching
version of the ordinary–until you read the wall panel. The curators of the SCMA
show are aware that aesthetics and materials also link to ecology. Cohen's bag
also makes a statement about "the worship of profit, power, and the
accumulation of things." Its undulating shape is a plastic version of El
Anatsui's metallic bottle cap curtains. In each case, we marvel over the
artistic vision (and labor) but wonder about the state of civilization in which
there is such a proliferation of cast-off material–or garbage, if you prefer.
Pamela Longobardi wordlessly makes this point. Her
20-foot-long "Economies of Scale" is a small-to-big metaphorical
timeline that takes us from a nurdle (plastic pellet) to a large fishing buoy
fashioned from plastic. Talk about data visualization! It made me return home
to notice how plastic is everywhere in my life, including the keyboard keys
upon which I typed these words. The question, as always, is what happens when
we're "done" with the plastic. We know that much of it will be
landfilled and leach chemicals into the soil and water table, but amnesia is
psychologically easier to digest.
Mark Dion tries to help us remember. He grew up beachcombing
along the New Bedford shoreline. There are several of his "cabinets of
curiosity" at the SCMA show, His "specimen" jars are filled with
plastic objects, some of which look like human organs. Others (pictured) are
children's (and sex) toys that make up his "Institute for Inveterate
Marine Biology."
Sure, we can make weird art out of the garbage, as Aurora
Robeson has done with her "Ona," though you might also want to muse
upon the fact that it also means "only child." Indeed, though
"Ecosystem of Excess" from Turkish artist Pinar Yoldas isn't as
instantly powerful as some of the other pieces, it's wallop comes from forcing
us to consider how a world in which the oceans contain more plastics than
plankton might alter evolution of marine life. Will the future be one in which
organics and plastics meld? That's probably not what Mr. Maguire envisioned.
Rob Weir
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