Aesthetics of the Dump. Contagion, Expansion and Overflow in Contemporary Latin American Cultural Practices

• Main Author: Adriana López-Labourdette
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Iberoamericana / Vervuert 2019-11-01
• Series: Iberoamericana. América Latina - España - Portugal
• Subjects: spatialization; garbage; dump; overflowing; contagion
• Online Access: https://journals.iai.spk-berlin.de/index.php/iberoamericana/article/view/2621

This essay analyses the modes for producing waste spaces in pieces of art conceived in the nineties and thereon. For this purpose, I propose an analysis from three different perspectives: the ways in which  garbage dumps are represented; the tension relating to their materiality, their consumption and their spatiality; and the relation between aesthetization of garbage and “garbaging” of art. Entering into dialogue with some of the theoretical approaches on garbage, this essay points out a transition from an aesthetics of separation to one of contamination, in which a dislocation and an incontinence occur. Waste dumps have ceased to be those spaces in which garbage is put away from social and aesthetic life; they have become contagious and expansive territories.