Daily Art Fixx

What is art. There are myriad definitions  for the word, but it really comes down to the individual and what he or she finds beautiful and interesting. For Justin Gignac, art is the trash he collects from the streets of New York City. Since around 2002, Gigna has been hand picking trash and arranging it in small plastic cubes that are signed, numbered, and dated. Typical cubes include items such as soda cans, candy wrappers, receipts, event tickets, cigarette butts, coffee cups, newspapers, and parking tickets. In the beginning, Gignac’s cubes sold for $10 to a few intrigued tourists. These days, he has sold over 1,000 cubes in 25 countries for $50 and up.

Found art is not a new idea. Marcel Duchamp coined the term “readymade” to describe his found art in 1915. Since then, found object art has been prevalent in the Dada, Surrealist, and Pop Art movements to name a few. The meaning of found art has expanded over time and now, numerous categories have been defined including assemblage, appropriation, collage, and even Internet based found images that are reworked with computer graphic tools to form new works of art. ⑴

So, are Gignac’s cubes art? I think so.  The garbage within the cubes are carefully composed. If you look closely at a piece, there is a story being told – the story of a lunch or coffee break, of a night on the town, a day at the ballpark – the stories of everyday life. Look for yourself and see where your imagination takes you. To find out more about Justin Gignac, or to purchase an art cube, visit his website at NYCgarbage.com.

Justin Gignac - © NYC Garbage Cube

You may also like:

1. John Dahlsen – Eco-Art
2. The Art of Recycling – Part II
3. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: 1880-1938