packaging as content

February 9, 2009

Tony Feher

“Just So” 2002 (upper photo from corestudio08’s Flickr Photostream; lower photo from My Fake Plastic Earth’s Flickr Photostream)

Tony Feher on his artwork and how he relates to objects:

“It’s a very obsessive compulsive
relationship. I have seen news clips on this, where they go into a
cluttered apartment in Manhattan and they are appalled at all the stuff
someone has collected and cannot get rid of, like the old bagel on the
floor that is 5 years old. I see this and I think it’s gorgeous! The
color and the shape of the bagel, the texture…and I think, I have a
bagel just like that!!!”

“When
you peel the label off a plastic water bottle, you don’t have the
trappings of uniform or class that distinguishes it from others. You
are rendered to this anonymous generic bottle. Some bottles are too
loaded for me, ones that have an identity with the label off. It’s more
that I am taking advantage of a thing that was there, and how it feels
and what it does with light and condensation. That is what catches my
eye, like a sparkly chip of glass on the street.”

–from ArtSlant’s Interview with Tony Feher

Upper left: “Aspen” Off-site installation at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; upper right: “A Typical Colored Group” 2007; lower left: “Green” 2008; lower right: “Sour Gem” 2007