History of Junk Art Sculpture

Darragh McCambridge The Wasted Arts

Contents

Introduction

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History of Junk Art Sculpture

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Chapter 1: Junk sculptors

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Chapter 2: Interview 1

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Summary

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Introduction

From 5000 B.C to well into the 20 th century A.D, most sculpture has reflected the wealth, religion or political stature of the country. Early Egyptian sculpture reflected the political regime of the land, and powerful ‘Pharaohs’ demanded monumental sized tombs and artefacts to show their wealth and status. At the end of the 7 th century B.C the Greeks perfected castings of the human form to depict Gods and historical religious figures, installing pride and hope within their followers. In Japan, massive sculptures proved the country’s devotion to religion and faith, but also reflected its domination of people. All forms of sculpting were so aesthetically pleasing e.g. gold, marble and bronze etc…, intricately detailed, and nearly all commissioned by people of power. So why in recent years have artists been discarding the skills and beautiful detail of previous forms of sculpture, in favour of using ‘junk’ materials, useless in terms of their original functions they were created for? Modern Sculpture now seems to be the random collage of forgotten scrap, or is there deep intellectual thought into the selection of these discarded materials?

There are still modern artists and sculptors who create intricate body forms and get commissions to demonstrate the mastering of their skills in art, but their art is not is not ‘mainstream’ and it doesn’t win the prestigious ‘Turner prize’ or get placed in the

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“Tate modern.” Instead an old washing machine or an unmade bed causes the masses to turn their heads in wonder and thought.

What I want to find out is why junk materials play such a big role in modern sculpture? How do these materials help to carry a message when “arranged?” To help me in my quest for knowledge

I shall try to contact artists with slightly different views and uses for junk art sculpture. Research into the traditional materials used in more ‘ancient’ times and try to show the progression from old to new mediums.

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History of Junk Art Sculpture

Junk art sculpture didn’t prominently appear as an art ‘trend’ until the 1960’s, although it can be argued that using ‘Junk’ in sculpture can date back to Inuit and African tribes. In the 1960’s traditional materials of rock and bronze had become mundane for sculptors, and so ‘Junk art’ emerged as a progressive change to create artwork as everything could be sculpted. Modern junk art sculpture did not however appear in an instant and its roots in surrealist paintings can be evidently seen with the works of Dali and Picasso, where using objects in a surreal form became a visual connection between real life and the surreal world. Junk art sculptures can convey surrealism perfectly to the public, and has resulted in junk/found objects becoming one of the most popular forms of materials for modern sculptors.

Marcel Duchamp’s

‘Bicycle wheel (1913)’ is an example of the weird surreal collaboration of junk materials and objects. Duchamp called this art ‘ready-made.’

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Marcel Duchamp created surreal art sculptures which he called

‘ready made.’ His work could arguably be described as the first junk art sculptures.

Traditional materials in sculpture can be sourced back to mud and clay used in the stone ages which derived from ‘bas relief’ pictures of animals etc… usually on the walls of caves. Fragments of bone and ivory have been found with carvings and in the later stone ages had been carved into completely rounded figures (3D).

When copper was the first metal to be found (as early as 5000B.C in Egypt), utensils and carving tools could be made but copper was still found to be too soft to carve rock, but an alloy of copper and tin was found to be much more resistant – bronze. Only then with instruments made of bronze did it become possible to carve softer stone (such as gypsum) and wear down harder stone. At around

500B.C iron became widely available to sculptors, iron was much more resistant than bronze and could be used to carve hard rock therefore expanding the sculptor’s choice of materials to work with. With harder, stronger tools it also became possible to extract precious stones such as diamonds or gold and incorporate their aesthetic qualities into all types of art forms. It was this constant innovation of technology that allowed sculptors in all parts of the world to develop their use of processes and styles by experimenting more with different materials they could find or think of, including the use of metals. It wasn’t just tools and

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Darragh McCambridge The Wasted Arts metals that evolved sculpture and widened its choice of materials, the processes of plastering and ‘Papier Mache’ derived from the ease of manipulating very malleable materials to suit the sculptor’s designs.

In western Greece a process of ‘casting’ was perfected in order to produce the most realistic models of God’s creation; ‘the human body.’ The original shape would have been moulded from clay because of its malleability, and then a mould would be made negative to the shape of the clay. Michelangelo in the 1500’s had a huge understanding of sculpture and even created his own tools, and throughout history Greek sculpture is revered as the most influential and innovative of all sculpture. Nearly all western sculpture for the next three hundred years was created from marble, bronze or other types of stone. In total these traditional materials had been in use properly since the Egyptians and no evidence suggests that sculptors tried to use mixed mediums while creating sculpture in this time. In fact it was not until the late

1800’s that sculptors started to move away from using one type of material and to incorporate different materials together. In 1878,

French artist Edgar Degas made a sculpture of a young dancer in bronze then covered the statue in a paste made from lard and beeswax to create realistic human skin. The sculpture was then dressed in a real tutu; another was even made with a change of tutu, this slight change from the ‘normal’ came under scrutiny at

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Darragh McCambridge The Wasted Arts the time but is now looked back upon favourably as a change or progression of use of materials. In the 1900’s sculptors had become bored by the original views of sculptures resembling

‘perfect’ bodies and figures, so the artists began to enjoy a new freedom of expression, taking their influences from African art and

Inuit tribes where readily available materials were used such as bone and wood. Artists such as Picasso created sculptures and paintings hugely influenced by his love of the art of African people, incorporating materials such as shell and bone not thought of by previous sculptors.

In the 1940’s – 1960’s an American sculptor called ‘Alexander

Calder’ used scrap metal and general ‘found objects,’ as the preferred material for his contemporary sculptures. Anything that exists can become part of sculpture, and another of the great features of ‘junk art’ is that, what may look like an unintelligible barrage of tin cans, string, corks or even clothes pegs, can carry a meaning across to the viewer purely through the materials used.

It was the 20 th

century artists that took a stand for their freedom of expression and what followed ended up as a complete change of what sculpture was originally revered for.

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Chapter 1: Junk sculptors

“Some people think ‘modern art’ is a load of rubbish.

My sculpture is little else, as I make things out of the junk that people have thrown away .”

- David Kemp [1]

David Kemp

David Kemp is a modern Junk art sculptor who lives in Cornwall.

Kemp uses anything he sees potential in to create sculptures, and often searches the countryside as some people dump their junk there to get rid of it. Kemp has said that he is always finding bits of machinery and old cans that he converts in to mechanical animals and birds; he then imagines that these might hop off towards the moors to replace wildlife that roads and cars have driven away.

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This piece for example is called “Yore mama,” and immediately your attention is drawn towards the large eyes and mouth, staring out at you with a hilarious expression. The use of

Darragh McCambridge The Wasted Arts his materials in this sculpture holds Kemp’s meaning; as we can see in a close up piano keys create the teeth, various old toy parts create eyes, and the rest is made from parts of bellows and curtain rings. This sculpture conveys the African-American culture that founded the creative music of jazz; even the nose looks very similar to a musical clef at the start of a music sheet.

All of these materials came from junk and by using discarded objects in modern times Kemp makes connections with past cultures, which can sometimes question our modern values or induce thought about different cultures. Most of Kemp’s sculptures are very comical to look at, often being very out of proportion and very using very bold colours, this conveys to me that Kemp is a man very close to his ‘inner child’.

Other works of David Kemp’s carry strong environmental messages, such as 'Industrial Plant' created for the Eden project, which highlights the irony of using fossil fuels derived from plants, to power ‘industrial plants’.

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The sign on the front of this piece helps the viewer to see the danger of industrial growth and the profound effect fossil fuels have upon the environment and its wildlife, it is almost like ‘David

Kemp’s’ futuristic view into what the continuation of burning fossil fuels will do to our landscapes. The apexes of the stems seem to be made from pipe cleaners/chimney sweeps which highlight a plant’s filtering properties (CO2 to O2), and about the unhealthy smog filled air of an industrial area. Ultimately there is a contrast in this piece which makes it intriguing; plants are associated with beauty and cleanliness and industrial factories are unclean and ugly.


David Kemp’s work has very simplistic meanings, often being within reach of childish understanding and thought. The use of junk materials in David Kemp’s creations works perfectly as out of proportion materials over emphasise areas of interest to focus people’s attention to find the artworks meanings.

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Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) first considered an engineering career after graduating from the ‘Stevens institute of technology’, but soon changed his mind to become a professional artist and in his early twenties attended art classes in New York whilst working as an illustrator. In Paris - 1926, Calder developed his ‘Cirque Calder’; a miniature work of performance art made of wire and found materials. Performances of the Cirque Calder gained Calder introduction to artists in Paris, then the centre of the art world.

Calder invented a very innovative type of wire sculpture whereby Calder "drew" in space with wire portraits of friends and other personalities. Some of his most well known work became known as ‘Mobile’ as it used mechanics to create aesthetic, kinetic sculpture. Calder refined his thoughts in his mobile works by allowing sheets of metal to ‘flap’ in light wind, and air.

Some of Calder’s works such as

Little dog (1909) and

Cockerel (1960) are made from found objects, in my opinion these sculptures are very aesthetically pleasing and comical but do not hold any outstanding relation to the materials used, the point in the sculptures may be that these animals strangely come to life with an odd assortment of junk materials.

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A lot of Calder’s work isn’t specifically Junk art and this is where I have realised people can become confused as to the definition of junk art, but I still want to explore a few more artists before I come to a proper conclusion.

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Bill Woodrow

In the early 1980s, Woodrow emerged as a pivotal figure in a new generation of British sculptors, a common concern of modernism centred on the use of found-objects and/or simple manufacturing procedures. Woodrow was also short listed for the turner prize in

1986 for his contribution to British art and more specifically his sculpture

‘natural produce, an armed response.’

Unlike some Junk sculptors, Woodrow has an ambiguity to his work or more to the point an undefined explanation.

Tricycle and tank (1981)

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Work such as tricycle and tank (1981) depict a small red tank placed on the seat of a broken tricycle, in my opinion this construes the feeling of change during adolescence, the long period of childhood and how so quickly adult life takes over. Worries are burdened upon an adult that a child does not have to face and so the feeling of a child is lost. Another meaning could be a different one, which is that war has destroyed children’s lives in certain parts of the world and so there is no childhood playfulness these children where war is prevalent cannot leave their homes. I feel that point is conveyed through the placement of the tricycle’s front tyre and the lack of a child or human presence.

In actuality the real meaning is found through the “ formal qualities of the objects, the production of the tank and tricycle being the fashioning and bending of metal.” [2]

The beauty of Woodrow’s work is that meaning is not the issue in which to focus your attention, but you feel compelled to find reason within it. Woodrow leaves peoples questions unanswered so that after several minutes debating, the person finally comes to a simple conclusion based on the object’s material production and origin or does not come to any at all.

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Johan Jonsson

As I was searching for modern sculptors over the internet, I came across Johan Jonsson immediately his work captivated my attention with human figures fabricated from tar, wire and other materials. Aesthetically Johan’s work had caught my attention, but the explanations and use of materials in his sculpture had equally intrigued me. Johan Jonsson is a Swedish sculptor whose work uses cernit clay, metal, wire and tar, most of which are not used widely together.

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“The kiss”


In “ the kiss” there is a strange negative positioning of the two bodies on what should be a portrayal of intimacy. The figures do not embrace each other, their limbs are clearly behind their backs and only the top halves of their bodies bend together in order to

‘force’ this kiss. The figure on the right, most likely male, has one leg raised slightly showing an imbalance or a want to turn away or step back. The image could either be depicting a couple whose interests are not in love, but in giving themselves an image to the viewer.

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“

Pat on the head”


This sculpture is a brilliant image of childish reverence for their elders and of the child’s need for appraisal. The proportions of the sculpture are noticed straight away and it is this point that conveys to the viewer the feeling of being very young and constantly bending your neck to look up to the friendly giants, who to you are everything and hold the answer to every question.

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The Recycling

In

“the Recycling”

the position of the subjects and the title convey what meaning to extract. I found myself slightly confused by this piece, trying to find meaning within the materials used, so I asked

Johan about this piece and his meaning behind it.


“The Recycling, I believe, is someone, or mankind, at the edge of something. It might be something about life and death and rebirth and crossing borders. It might be something about leaving or entering, going from something or towards something. It might also be something about being reborn in a symbolic way, about out with the old and so on. Something like that. I'm not absolutely sure.”

Johan’s enlightenment on this piece made me think of an image of a grandparent nearing the end of their days and a small newborn crawling on the ground taking in everything around them. This piece in that context would be quite surrealist as the figures aren’t completely personified. In another context of the actual recycling of waste, this sculpture depicts a person or ‘mankind’ (as Johan put it) discovering a new piece of technology/process. The figure does not embrace the object completely, because he/se does not know what to do with it, and so keeps distance. The sculpture could also comically represent mankind finding this ‘thing’ and looking up to the heavens as if asking a god why have they put it there, and this thing being a figurative form of the process of recycling to save the world.

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I was in bewilderment over

“The Stillness”

so again I confronted

Johan on his reasoning.

“Stillness, was intended as a vibrant resting, as stillness just before moving, falling. Maybe you could say that it's tonus, the sleeping activity, alertness of muscles at rest, and in a "personified" way. So it's actually stillness and not stillness.”


In all honesty I still find this piece confusing, but the sculpture looks like a diver with his/her arms outstretched over their head waiting for the plunge into water, the same potential energy a person has while being on the edge of a cliff. Because I cannot see

360 degrees around the figure I cannot tell whether or not I am correct.

I asked Johan why he chooses the materials that he does to create modern sculpture, specifically whether or not these materials have an advantage to their use, he told me;

“When it comes to iron, steel, metal; I like those materials because they're being hot and cold, hard and soft at the same time, and also because they're hard worked in a sense, that you have to conquer them every time. You kind of get rewarded if you put in the time. I like that. But I can see that I'm using more and more of other materials; when it comes to the effect I'm not sure, I mainly like to find the balance between different materials, colours, shapes, proportions, and what the sculpture is expressing.

Investigating the creative process when it comes to materials, proportions, forms, items.”

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When Johan put his choice of materials in that context, I thought immediately of the genius of Bill Woodrow’s ideas and how he creates ambiguity in his sculptures meanings. Johan definitely holds the answers of his work to himself and leaves a vague idea of what his meanings are to the viewer so that he can see their reactions and hear their thoughts, finding the response to his work as rewarding as creating the art.

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Kevin Killen

Kevin Killen is a sculptor residing in south east Northern Ireland.

I was first told about Kevin when contacting Fionnuala Walsh,

Creative Youth Partnerships (C.Y.P) Development Officer about artists from Northern Ireland who work with Junk art sculpture.

Kevin’s work has been closely involved with community projects in N.I and mainly projects orchestrated by the C.Y.P.

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As I researched Kevin before interviewing him, I was genuinely interested by his strange and very individual sculptures; some of his sculptures ranged from brightly coloured alien like figures placed on the top of crushed cars (left), to a very realistic horse made from old farming ploughs

(right).


I contacted Kevin Killen by phone to ask him a series of questions related to his overall career and medium choice. Firstly I asked him how he feels the term ‘Junk art’ is used today, and what it really means. Kevin told me quite simply that junk art is mainly an American term to describe any type of art made from junk. In an extra note I asked him whether or not he described his work as

‘junk art’, in which he replied that he uses a lot of found objects, especially from scrap yards and anything he sees potential in.

I inquired into the types of ways he promotes his work and sells work, in which he replied;

“Well I can do exhibitions which are risky as solo exhibitions costs money to organise and host. It is worth it if money can be made by selling work. Commissioned work can include organisations, ‘trusts’ and other types of clients looking for specifically designed sculptures.

I would mainly work around community projects in which I could be asked to design a sculpture relating to ‘joy riders’ in an area, in that case I would use things from burnt out cars or bits of stolen parts that had been found by the youth in a community. In community projects like that I would involve the community in the design process so they

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Darragh McCambridge The Wasted Arts feel pride about the sculpture when it is finally placed in their area.

The reason that junk art sculpture works well in a community project Kevin continued, is that the junk sculpture can be described as ‘environmentally friendly’ as it involves in the recycling of junk materials. Kevin also stressed that it honestly depends on what the organisation arranging these projects feels is best suited for the project, and more than often the community just want something that’s looks nice, and is ‘vandal proof’.

So I could compare Johan and Kevin I asked Kevin. “What are the advantages of using junk to create sculpture?” Kevin replied with an answer that has been conveyed by sculptors since junk art became prevalent among the art world, that stone and bronze have become boring to work with and view, and that it is very expensive to create e.g. a bronze sculpture could easily cost £20,000 in which the sculpture might not be worth. Kevin made a strong point that;

“Scrap metal is definitely cheaper but more poignant is that my father was a scrap merchant which meant that I was always surrounded by scrap metal and would naturally see the potential in it for art.

”

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Finally I asked him whether there were any artists that he felt influenced/inspired his work. At this question Kevin earnestly expressed that he doesn’t look at other artists’ work for influence, and thinks for himself. He did however say that he has admired artists who haven’t been involved with the trivialities of the art world and have worked solely for their art, such as David Smith who was a 1950’s American artist that created a whole range of work “just for the purpose of art.”

Kevin also spoke of a new art form called ‘outsider art’ which has been involving artists who don’t have typical backgrounds in art education. Kevin has admired the works of some of these artists such as ‘Anthony Cowell’ and generally finds a lot of good stuff in

“Raw Vision” a magazine including a lot of modern artists.

In Short Kevin’s work really reflects his own ideas when sculpting and viewing objects of potential. Kevin’s father being a scrap merchant cannot be coincidental, as a child the influence of scrap metal naturally created the shapes and forms of his imagination and that is something he has not forgotten in his sculpture. This cannot be said for every junk art sculptor but that childish imagination that creates piled clothes into animals, or clouds into pictures can.

For every junk art sculptor I’m sure the feeling is quite mutual that bronze and stone sculpture has become boring to create modern sculpture in

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Summary

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Junk art sculpture has a different way of conveying meaning and emotion than sculpture during the 7 th

century. Using Junk is almost a symbol of the times we live in, when it is just so accessible to find junk materials, mainly due to excess consumerism and on top of that companies producing excess products. The world has a problem with it and the amount of non biodegradable waste produced every day is unmanageable, scrap yards are usually massive lots of land filled with things people don’t want to deal with. There is also the purpose for which a sculpture is produced which can be expressed through the items used, people can also relate to most of the materials a lot more because the popular designs etc… preserved on cans, metal etc… that are used. Design and consumerism is a huge part of modern life, and much like the people in history believed in religion, faith and myths, sculpture reflected their devotion to that, so does modern junk art sculpture in modern peoples devotion to fossil fuels and littering the planet.

Unfortunately people have become oddly confused with the term ‘junk art,’ whilst researching both the library and the internet people seem to describe work of such artists as ‘Alexander Calder’ as being junk art. Calder’s style of using of metals in sculpture and the influence/relation of this in a lot of junk art today, has led

Darragh McCambridge The Wasted Arts people to believe that a lot of metal work can be described as ‘junk art’ when it really isn’t. Junk art has to be strictly defined as

‘found objects’, for example; creating a metal work sculpture of plants from sheets of metal may carry a slight meaning in its shape, form or style but this alone cannot label it as ‘junk art,’ creating plants with metals or objects coming from broken machines, factories or scrap yards now instils the sculpture with a meaning in the materials used or helps focus attention to some relevant part of its meaning, this can now be called junk art as it is simply and truly

‘Art from Junk.’

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History of Junk Art Sculpture - junk art sculpture by Johan Jonsson

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Junk sculptors

Chapter 2: Interview 1

Chapter 3: Interview 2

Summary

Introduction