All these plastic spoons, take-out boxes and general crap that make up our disposable, consumerist lifestyle are enough to give an environmentalist the hives. So what’s the answer? Expensive recycling? Landfills? Pack the crap up and torch it? Heavens, no! We need only take a page out of Dan Steinhilber’s artful book. Steinhilber constructs his sculptures from large quantities of consumer detritus (read: plastic cutlery, bubble wrap, hangers, etc.). For his new exhibit, “Perspectives 151: Dan Steinhilber,” the artist has created a site-specific work for the Nina and Michael Zilkha Gallery in the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Stand 20 feet away, and you’d never know that his sometimes sleek, minimalist pieces are made from the stuff usually found in a Glad bag. The forms are sensuous, pure and even clean. You can check out Steinhilber’s garbage when his exhibit opens today.
March 31-June 4
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2006.