We like trash

In may 2010, in Amsterdam, the garbage collectors decided to strike, in order to protest against the low salaries. The result of their action were streets full of trash bags and a postcard city transformed into an open air dump. In this circumstances, art took part in the city life, rendering the trash into something original and concealing its typical ugliness with a colored show. The artist Jesse Limmen decided to give a touch of color to the rubbish hills painting them with spray cans and creating an unusual splash of colors.

Images taken from http://web.me.com/jlimmen/Site/Kleuren_-_Vuilnis.html

It is interesting to notice that, not so far away, in Spain, in the city of Barcelona, lives an artist who uses garbage as the raw material of his art. Francisco de Pajaro uses the everyday rubbish found on the street to create particular and colored art works: he puts together pieces of different things (from old tables to doors, from monitors to refrigerators, from shoes to chairs, but also suitcases, simple cardboard boxes or garbage bags) and he draws on them, paints or writes his thoughts. Most of the times we can recognize his work for a small text which goes together with the work and says “El arte es basura”, literally “Art is trash”. In technical words it is true, his art is trash, but in a larger meaning this approach to art is, we believe, what is most far from trash. The tough message he leaves us suddenly reveals the strong, deep meaning of making art out of garbage, claiming without shame the origins (and the end) of his work to the frivolous mood of the more touristic streets, often far from the reality of the City.