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Layers of the Discarded: Discarded Things in Contemporary Art and New Materialism

  • Journal of History of Modern Art
  • 2023, (53), pp.23-46
  • Publisher : 현대미술사학회
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Art > Arts in general > Art History
  • Received : May 7, 2023
  • Accepted : June 8, 2023
  • Published : June 30, 2023

Jae-Joon Lee 1

1숙명여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the crisis of the Anthropocene, triggered by the accumulation of ‘discarded objects,’ trashy artifacts, and the contemporary artistic phenomena that can respond to it. The crisis prompts us to examine the question of the community of human and non-human objects in the context of trends in contemporary art history. In reaction to the crisis of the Anthropocene, contemporary art has been engaged in various practical experiments with concern, but in these experiments the waste itself is still concealed or forgotten. This article therefore proposes to examine the place of ‘the discarded’ in contemporary art through a politico-ecological perspective. Unique representations in contemporary art can suspend the consumerist political-economic gaze and even the scientistic gaze of the Anthropocene, which is superimposed on ‘the thing in front of the eye.’ For this purpose, this paper describes the object or thing itself as defined by object-oriented ontology and new materialism. ‘The discarded object’ proves its own existence outside of humanism and is also transformed through interaction with other interrelated objects. ‘Layers’ refers to the aspects of things that are transformed in this way. Based on this conceptual account of the layering of the discarded object, I reread the place of the discarded object in the discussion of the 'object' in contemporary art, presenting the materiality of Minimalism as an 'object' and the materiality of Junk Art as ‘the discarded object’. However, even in this concept of the object, the humanistic view and correlationism do not disappear. Therefore, to illustrate the possibility of non-correlationism in contemporary art, Heidegger's interpretation of Van Gogh's The Shoe and Hwang Jihae's Shoe Tree (2017) were critically analyzed. This discussion of the layers of discarded objects in contemporary art ultimately calls for an experimental role of contemporary art for the human and non-human communities of the Anthropocene.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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