Progress Through Disaster: If I said it stinks, would it be a putdown?

MY HOMETOWN IN CONNECTICUT is one of those cities where local artists are commissioned by local businesses and the local government to create sculptures for the street (local streets), which then are auctioned off for charity after some number of months. This is a great idea. Everyone benefits: the artist, the charities, the politician, the business, the people. Sure, sometimes the art winds up being kind of terrible, like the year that the downtown was overrun by smaller-than-life, garish giraffes, but still, great concept.

The current exhibition is called Tossed and Found and is a bunch of sculptures made from trash and found objects. One piece, a huge rhino made from wood panels, is, I hear, already going for $20K. The whole exhibition is a big step up from the painted ceramic animal thing. Go CT!

I couldn't find any pictures of the Tossed and Found stuff (I didn't look that hard - hey, I'm on vacation), but check this stuff out instead! Artists created piles of trash that, once you project light onto them, become something else entirely.

Shigeo Fukuda, Lunch with a Helmet On, 1987