Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang

RIDE-ON

2023

Medium: pile of black beach plastic and toy ATV

Dimensions: on the floor not to exceed the 8’ x10’ area delineated by the contraction lines .

Price: NFS

Description: During our 25-year-long project we’ve been on an ongoing quest to discover how an aesthetic mind transforms plastic pollution into something meaningful, something impactful to see. When we began thinking about what to present at 120710, we settled on a simple representation of a contemporary archaeology site, shaping our collection of black plastic into a pile and then mounting a toy ATV on top. Bringing the riddle of how we will be remembered? into the sanctuary of the exhibition hall turns the polemics of anger at consumer recklessness into the solutions of the joy of discovery, the pleasure of collecting, and the understanding of the mess we have gotten ourselves into. Maybe this is just a dream, but after years of work in our art studios, we do know the enchantment of creative thinking that leads out into a world where we can transform the mess into meaning.