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Waste Not

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Another sterile white-walled gallery filled with sterile contemporary art, right?

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These paintings and sculptures are actually construction debris, pieces of furniture, carpet, wood flooring and stone tile removed from demolition sites.  The exhibit, called “Usus/Usures”, is Belgium’s entry at the Architecture Exhibit at this year’s Venice Biennale, a kind of architecture Olympics that brings together prominent international design offices.

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The pieces were curated, or should I say salvaged, by Rotor, a Belgian design collective that often work with reclaimed construction materials.  The spaces do look beautiful.  On one level it might be a joke, since some of this garbage has the prettiness of minimalist art.

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USUS USURES STAIR RAILING

On another level it’s a statement about how we use things and discard them when they’ve become old and worn.  The flaws in these pieces give them character.  A scrap of oddly cut carpet,  wood school desks covered with scratchiti, and a stained wood floorboard are all strangely compelling when hung on a gallery wall.  The challenge is to appreciate this kind of artwork when it’s installed in our homes.

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