The genre of trash art or junk art was born in the USA in the early 20th century, when the modernist view of consumer society and its related concepts were first examined. Trash art uses ordinary, everyday materials that often end up in the trash, and has become associated with raising awareness of environmental issues and social responsibility.
Artists such as Duchamp, Picasso, Vik Muniz or, to mention contemporary Hungarian artists, Ede Sinkovics, Gábor Baráth and Attila Dóczi can be associated with this direction.
The exhibition “TrashKós freskók” also uses the tools of trash art to show that trash is not necessarily a useless thing, since artists can use it as a creative concept to see it as a raw material, which can be recreated to give aesthetic and content meaning to the resulting work. One of the main characteristics of the movement is that it is not limited to a single artistic discipline, but is represented in all of them. Trash art can be found in painting, sculpture, haute couture, installation, even in home furniture and furnishings. By preserving environmental values, recycling itself and the reimagined, revitalised form of materials become part of the sustainable cycle and the artistic process, and thus artworks.
Thanks to the initiative of the Bényi Gallery and the Főnix Rendezvényszervező Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft., the advertising materials that had accumulated in recent years and had become redundant were reused. As an eco-school, the Kós Károly Art High School, Technical College and College of Art considers value-creating recycling and the pursuit of sustainability in the arts important. Adopting the concept of the exhibition, creative students, under the artistic guidance of the school’s teachers, have given new purposes to posters, banners, building meshes and publications for various events. Carefully coordinated teamwork between teachers and students, planning, experimentation and execution characterised the weeks of preparation that went into the creation of the installations.
The exhibition “TrashKós freskók” can be seen from 9th of March to 5th of April 2023 in the front window of the Bényi Gallery.
