(Courtesy of City Reliquary)
Many art shows can be classified as “trash” but a new sculpture garden takes it a step further. Part of the ongoing “NYC Trash!: Past, Present, & Future” exhibit at the The City Reliquary, the new garden features creations made from garbage by 10 local artists to show that trash “can and should be reused.” Global warming permitting, an opening reception will take place in the Williamsburg museum’s back garden on Saturday, April 7, at noon.
The show features Bernard Klevickas, who was behind the series of bicycles twisted around lamp posts that popped up around the city late last year. Barbara Lubliner, who has previously shown at the Brooklyn Museum, will lean into the millennial succulent craze with a succulent garden that uses plastic bottles. Artist Niki Lederer will exhibit sculptures made from bright bottles she collects from recycling bins late at night. Also featured will be Tyrome Tripoli, previously an artist in residence with San Francisco Refuse and Recycle, and multimedia artist Claudia Sbrissa, who, in an show at Brooklyn’s Muriel Guepin Gallery, once used discarded materials from a former belt factory to create columns that referenced the “ancient ruins” of New York’s manufacturing sector.
There will also be a screening of 2 Lost Soles, the animated tale of two discarded sneakers (hence the title) that go on an epic journey through waters polluted with tampon applicators and coffee cups. The video was produced by a group of teenagers led by Christy Gast, an artist in residence at the Wildlife Conservation Corps, and is intended to encourage local beach cleanup.
Zero Waste advocate and consultant Jacqueline Ottman will also read from her book If Trash Could Talk. And if running into a garbage truck on your walk to work wasn’t quite sufficient, there will be an official DSNY garbage truck parked outside the museum to “allow the public to get up close and personal with New York’s trash removal devices.”