Ghosts of Consumption (for Piet M.)
Ghosts of Consumption (for Piet M.)
Artist
Pam Longobardi
(born 1958)
Date2011
MediumFound ocean plastic from Hawaii, Alaska, Greece, Costa Rica, Italy, and the Gulf of Mexico
Dimensions75 × 110 × 5 in. (190.5 × 279.4 × 12.7 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2021.43
Accession number
2021.43
On View
Not on viewLabel TextSourcing her materials from the plastic trash that litters the ocean, Pam Longobardi’s artwork transforms recognizable materials into something to be admired on the wall. Titled Ghosts of Consumption (for Piet M.), she references the modernist abstract painter Piet Mondrian, who created gridded abstract works. Mondrian advocated for eliminating recognizable imagery in art because he believed it impeded a work’s ability to be truly beautiful. Longobardi picks up on Mondrian’s stylistic adherence to the grid, but contradicts the modern master’s aesthetic ideals by creating something beautiful out of the easily recognizable trash of the everyday.
