KUNST.STOFF.TÜTEN - PLASTICBAGS

KUNST.STOFF.TÜTEN - PLASTICBAGS

The plastic bag as a work of art? Ever since Marcel Duchamp´s ready-mades the notion of art has been changing: Dada artists sang the praises of the seemingly banal, while Pop art breached the borders between high culture and entertainment, turning soap boxes and soup cans into art. If the status of an everyday object is raised to that of a work of art, the resulting change in context and the distance to the self-evident brings about a re- evaluation by the viewer. In the end, the production of art lies in the eye and reception of the beholder.

The plastic bag, originally an ultra-profane mass product, consumer good and advertising medium, serves as an example to illustrate this mechanism: In this book, brightly colored pieces from the production of a homegrown plastics manufacturer from Swabia are presented in a way that reveals and highlights their surprising aesthetic character. The change in the level of reception from advertising material to work of art has taken place. The selected objects, grouped according to thematic and formal criteria, not least serve to illustrate the viewer's own mechanisms of perception.

Edited by Susanne Gerber, foreword by Bernd Hansen, texts by Ole Frahm/Friedrich Tietjen, Susanne Gerber, Regine Hakenbeck, Manfred Russo