I've always been in awe of New York City garbage, it's unlike any other place because I've had garbage in California and Florida and Cincinnati but in New York, there are rarely back alleys so everything is on the curb.
The cost of real estate is so high that it makes absolutely no sense to store anything at home, storage units and moving are very expensive. So a lot of the time, it's the easiest to put things you don't need on the curb. So other people who need them could take them home.
My friend furnished his entire studio from the garbage, including his work table, cabinets, stretcher bars and even canvases that he repurposed and repainted.
I didn't have any furniture in my apartment to begin with, but when I needed something, I took it from the garbage.
I moved my entire San Francisco apartment to New York City and then gradually shed stuff as I moved around the city. Before and after every move, I put stuff on the sidewalk.
Heavy hand-woven wool carpets I had bought in Bulgaria and schlepped all the way to my house in San Francisco and then to New York all of a sudden became useless and a huge burden. I had nowhere to store them, and selling them seemed like a big project that I didn't want to undertake compared to what I would make if I simply worked the same amount of time.
It's really surprising that when time and space are at a premium, a lot of stuff immediately shifts in value, and once prized possessions become burdensome to even give away for free.
There are many varieties of garbage on the curb, entire living rooms with cabinets and entertainment centers and lamps, entire bedrooms with beds and mattresses, and children's toys. There's beautiful packaging around Christmas and New Year's. And sometimes there are mountains of boxes and bags piled higher than a human for almost a city block.
Many of these were like spontaneous installations. I was really fascinated with photographing them. Many times, I observed arrangements that were more interesting than what was in the galleries in Chelsea.
Once I saw a show of Arte Povera, or poor art from Italy, at Hauser and Wirth on 22nd street. It was from the '60s. It was one of the most beautiful garbage I had ever seen. Italy is one of the most talented nations on earth, art architecture fashion cars opera, and it seems, garbage.
I did very little work transforming garbage objects into artworks because what was interesting to me was the unadulterated spontaneity of garbage. But sometimes I got inspired by specific objects I found.
Once I found a pristine tomato red sled, another time I found a thrown-away painting where the back looked much better than what was on the front. I painted the back white and hung apple peels on the wire. The apple peels looked very much like strange hieroglyphs made out of my favorite food, so I called the piece apple peels kanji, after my favorite minimalist country, Japan.
There isn't any garbage in Japan! Nah, just kidding. Of course, there is, but you have to look for it. I remember going at night to a seedy part of Tokyo, if there is such a thing, it may have been Akihabara, yeah, there was garbage in the street.
I don't know about garbage, but I remember sitting at a cafe in Tokyo once, and looking out and across the street, there was a teenager talking on the phone, pacing back and forth, and at one point he bowed, to whoever he was talking to on the phone. I swear.
One summer, I spent a month cleaning my local park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I spent a lot of time collecting garbage and emptying trash cans. It was back-breaking work, but I ended up meeting a lot of my Polish neighbors who came out to help, and talked to the people in the park. Some park guests used me for improvised therapy sessions, and one customer of the men’s restroom used my sunglasses instead of the broken mirror to fix his hair.
My idea for Zero Art came to me when I saw people carrying doggie bags and small garbage bags and randomly cleaning the park. What if people collected found objects in small bags, arranged them into mini installations, and took nice pictures? Ephemeral and useful Zero Art.
A friend and I once had the idea to go around and take pictures of ourselves getting comfortable in garbage bedrooms on curbs around Manhattan. We'd pretend to drink coffee in a curbside living room, we'd photograph ourselves against all kinds of trash, and make spontaneous art pieces out of it.
I always wonder about the lives of objects. People hoard objects and carefully care for them in their homes. And then all of a sudden, one day these objects are not needed anymore and then end up on the curb. An object was once very useful and beautiful and had a great relationship with its owner. It was cared for and carefully dusted. Years would pass, and the object would become a witness to many life events in a home. There was always a special purpose in how it was brought in, why it was brought in, how it was picked, and how it was used. Many gifts and family heirlooms, loved for a long time and with long histories inevitably land in the garbage.
There are very few generational mansions with stuff in the US. Even Grand houses often get sold and resold and redecorated, and the old stuff gets thrown out.
Once during the pandemic, I saw a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow posing with a mask on a plane, and I thought why don’t they put up pictures of the street sweepers of New York City and the garbage men who continue to collect our trash and sweep our streets despite the whole world going inside.
I remember vividly that I couldn't sell my taekwondo gear for some reason. I'm not sure why I couldn't push it through eBay or Craigslist. I had become a yellow belt at taekwondo when I lived in the suburbs of San Francisco and had bought all the responsible gear, including shin guards and chest guards. In New York, I had to fight for my life and art, so I had no time to fight people's shins anymore. I just left them all on the street in Brooklyn. It became just like one of my installations.
