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A full-scale replica of a Hummer vehicle
is a unique exhibition that addresses two contemporary social
issues facing America and the world — global warming and the
war in Iraq. The Tampa Museum of Art presents American Detritus: Andrew Junge, on view in the museum’s Center
Gallery through Sunday, Sept. 16.
Interim Executive Director Ken Rollins,
who brought the exhibition to the museum, said, “When I first
saw the Hummer in a storage facility in Sarasota, it spoke to me in
a very powerful way. As a Vietnam veteran, I immediately connected
with the ghost-like image of this chariot of death and destruction.
At the same time, I realized this war-making vehicle has been
adopted by our consumer culture; the vehicle’s enormous gas
consumption has become a significant contributor to global
warming.
“On further reflection, the
discarded Styrofoam — or polystyrene — from which the
sculpture is made, will not disintegrate for more than 1,000 years.
I recalled that the combination of polystyrene and gasoline is what
is referred to as ‘jellied gasoline’ or napalm, an
agent of death in Vietnam. This powerful work of art speaks to many
issues, historical and present day, which are of great concern to
people in this county and throughout the world.”
Junge created this unique
full-scale replica of a Hummer as part of a grant-funded project
where he made art from material he recycled from a garbage dumpsite
in San Francisco. Junge handcrafted the Hummer from Styrofoam
bricks made from thousands of individual pieces of shaped
polystyrene, glued together and then shaved or sanded down, cut
with a hot-wire tool, or skinned with a sheet of polystyrene
veneer.
The vehicle is 17 feet long, 6 feet
high, and over 8 feet wide. Junge made the Hummer as an example of
how the artmaking process can be a force in recycling trash. Junge
has said he wishes, “To examine found objects and materials,
to invest them with new life, and to acknowledge their presence in
the world. My aim is to turn the lowest form of human productivity,
trash, into the highest form of productivity, art — a kind of
modern alchemy.”
Junge’s sculpture also stands as a
memorial and symbol of the Iraq war. He says, “It is a symbol
of an oil-guzzling machine at a time when American soldiers are
dying to secure oil-rich Iraq. And ironically, Styrofoam is made
from oil.”
Tampa Museum of Art is located at 600 N.
Ashley Dr., Tampa. Call 813-274-8130.
This work of art was most recently seen
this past March at Greene Contemporary in Sarasota and with
Lincart, San Francisco, at the SCOPE Miami Art Fair in December
2006. The June/July 2007 issue of Art in America magazine features
the American Detritus: Andrew Junge exhibition.
Three additional exhibitions continue
this month at the Tampa Museum of Art, featuring contemporary
crafts, sculpture and photography: Color: Ten African American
Artists, through Sept. 23, National Sculpture Society 74th Annual
Awards Exhibition, through Sept. 30 and The Big Picture: 2006
Photographer Laureate Steven S. Gregory, through Sept. 16.
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