“There’s Art in That Trash, At Least in One Philadelphia Dump”
“There’s Art in That Trash, At Least in One Philadelphia Dump”
by Michael E. Phillips | The Wall Street Journal
April 15, 2016
PHILADELPHIA—Performance artist Martha McDonald has done a residency at Johns Hopkins University. Her art is in the collection of the State Library of Victoria, Australia. She has displayed her work at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
Now she’s the official artist-in-residence at a Philadelphia garbage dump.
Revolution Recovery is an oddity in both the art and dump worlds, a grimy transfer and recycling facility that has become patron to artists seeking an ample supply of trash and a place to turn it into something more than it was.
At first, Ms. McDonald, a 52-year-old accustomed to being artistic in clean places, wondered if she was really up for foraging for materials in a 40-foot-tall pile of trash.