From June 22 to October 1, 2023, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt will for the first time dedicate a major thematic exhibition to the eventful history of plastic in the visual arts. This opens up the broad panorama of the artistic use and evaluation of the material from the 1960s to the present day. The spectrum ranges from the euphoria of pop culture to the futuristic influence of the Space Age and the trash works of Nouveau Réalisme to ecocritical positions of recent times; it includes architectural utopias as well as experiments with material properties. Objects, assemblages, installations, films, and documentaries show the diversity of substances, forms, and materials, while also reflecting the respective social context. Plastic is everywhere. It permeates the present, is cheap, available almost worldwide and omnipresent in everyday life. Whether hard or flexible, transparent, opaque, patterned, smooth, delicate or colorful, almost anything can be made from plastics today. In the 1950s, they celebrated their great breakthrough and became a symptom and symbol of mass culture - the "Plastic Age" was born. And plastics also found their way into art early on due to their immense design possibilities; they quickly became a central material and vehicle of innovation. In the search for the new, people experimented with the materials currently available, such as Plexiglas, Styrofoam, silicone, vinyl or polyurethane, and industrial production techniques. In the consumer frenzy of the time, Pop Art celebrated the new artificial and inexpensive material in its colorful brilliance and bright colors. Plastic was used in fantastic-looking spaces and environments or pumped up, foamed and cast at happenings. The fascination with space exploration, moon landings, and high-tech materials inspired the visual arts as well as architecture to create airy constructions and progressive spatial concepts. At the same time, alongside the minimalist works of the Finish Fetish artists, there were already accumulations of trash in the late 1960s that focused on the excesses of mass consumption and the ecological dimension of plastic. This perspective is increasingly taken up in artistic works today in view of the enormous proliferation of plastics and the burden on the environment.
"Plastic World" brings together around 100 works by more than 50 international artists* who work with plastic in a wide variety of ways, including Monira Al Qadiri, Archigram, Arman, César, Christo, Haus-Rucker-Co, Eva Hesse, Hans Hollein, Craig Kauffman, Kiki Kogelnik, Gino Marotta, James Rosenquist, Pascale Marthine Tayou, and Pınar Yoldaş. The exhibition highlights how, in its short history, the successful versatile material plastic transformed from the epitome of progress, modernity, utopian spirit and democratization of consumption to a threat to the environment. The exhibition "Plastic World" is supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain.
