MSLK’s 2663 Urban tumbleweeds Featured in New Phaidon Book: Wild Art


We are honored, flattered and humbled to be featured in the new Phaidon book, Wild Art. Our eco-art installation, Urban Tumbleweeds, is included in the section titled, “Wasting Away”. Jeremy Mayer kicks off the section with the quote, “We’re going to make a lot more junk, and there’s going to be a lot more junk art. I think people are going to have a lot to say about it, and more people need to think about it.” We couldn’t agree more.

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The book features urban interventions as well as body adornment, animal art, out of the ordinary architecture, all forms of art considered to be on the fringe. Urban Tumbleweeds is featured along side a portrait of RuPaul made out of rubbish such as hairbrushes, nail files, and makeup associated with the performer or the “Emerald Christmas Tree” made out of 32,000 recycled Sprite bottles illuminated with LED lights. Our facing page features a piece of “reverse graffiti” in Sao Paulo by Alexandre Orion. Here Orion cleaned and scraped his images out of the grime inside of a subway tunnel to create a positive change in the environment. 2,663 Urban Tumbleweeds — our measure of 1 second of the US consumption of plastic shopping bags fits right in.

 

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Some might question whether all the work featured constitute art or not… hence the title “Wild Art”. We say who cares! Art need only be thought provoking or reveal a true mastery of the craft to be exciting to us. I personally found the portrait of Bill Cosby comprised from various colors/flavors of Jello Shots to be humorous. I also liked the Mitchell Corn Palace, which I saw on a cross country trip 20 years ago and the Niimi Kitchen supply store with their teacup shaped balconies which we stumbled upon walking through Tokyo.

 

There are enough amazing things to be seen in this book to please/shock/anger/ anyone. You certainly won’t forget it.

You can pre-order directly from Phaidon here.