"Street Museum of Garbage" by Pavel Rotts

"What is art? Why does art have to be in the museums and galleries? What is beauty? People usually associate art with institutions and context rather than the pieces of art themselves. Scraps of metal inside an art gallery with a tag is perceived as art. The same piece in a junkyard would be perceived as a junk. So, art is about creating a context, a frame. For my project, I collected interesting objects (slice of dried bread, plastic bag, crushed spray can) from the garbage bins on the streets of St. Petersburg. Then I created small transparent boxes to contain the objects. My inspiration for the boxes was Damien Hirst. Hirst is a master of framing objects with beautiful boxes. The objects, which alone may not be so amazing, gain a striking new appearance and status by the heavy, industrial boxes. I wanted to do the same with the garbages on the street. These small boxes are placed all over the streets of St. Petersburg attracting the passersby to stop and look at the newly framed garbage. So they will see the garbage in a completely new way and even find beauty behind it."

Pavel Rotts / rots@list.ru