L'Ecritoire design "Rubbish" 2017
On October 8th 2017, I was interviewed by the Ecritoire design about the window displays I had just completed. I think the Ecritoire design team thought they were strange and needed an explanation. Below is this interview.
L’Ecritoire design: Our new window displays contain strange objects : transparent cubes filled with… rubbish, ripped pieces of paper bags! Vladimir Carvajal, painter and creator of these window displays, answers our questions.
Vladimir, you have now conceived several window displays for L’Ecritoire design. Why this line of work?
The displays for the storefronts of L’Ecritoire design allow me to explore new artistic ideas. In fact, I should also say that sometimes, my work as an artist gives me ideas for storefront displays. So it goes in both directions! Another advantage is that the storefront displays give me the opportunity to show things to the public at a pretty fast turnover, which I find interesting.
Your latest displays are pretty discreet but if we look carefully, we are quite surprised: we discover cubes filled with plastic nets for fruit and vegetables, pieces of wrapping, bits of cardboard, in other words, rubbish. Why rubbish?
There are several reasons. Let us maybe start with what inspired me at first. I travel every year to my country, Cuba, where I spend a few weeks. It so happens that Cuba is changing. The country is faced with a mass of tourists, something it has not seen since the Revolution. It makes me think of a shock between two worlds: with tourism come large amounts of new objects which were forbidden to us Cubans (thank you Blockade!!), and also large amounts of wrappings! Kids are for example fascinated by candy wrapping with drawings of bunnies! All this is completely new. Before, candies came in little brown bags. And so households suddenly find themselves with all these wrappings, but the garbage collection system cannot keep up. So this rubbish ends up in the street. The streets of Havana, which were clean during the '80s, are now dirty! This struck me, this collision of two worlds, and I have now lots of projects around this theme.
And the window displays arise from this experience?
Yes in a way. One must realize that the use of rubbish by artists is now an old tradition! But for me, it is the contrast of the Havana streets “before” and “after” that initiated this line of work. For the window displays, I simply wanted to give a few winks: the cubes of course, but also the little pieces of paper wrapping whose motifs intrigued me: either drawings I liked, or texts. These objects are small and rather discreet, because the first function of a storefront is to allow the display of items that are for sale.
So do you find beauty in these pieces of rubbish?
Certainly. The different materials are interesting, the colors… On a day to day basis, we see these pieces of rubbish and ignore them, or we get irritated to find them where they should not be. I wanted, by “formatting” them in a discreet manner, give them a new look that could catch our eyes, all this with a bit of humor… In rolling tightly these pieces of wrapping, I have in a way reproduced the candy box in which we have all put our hand. So the loop is closed. And I put these pieces of rubbish, which have, by essence, no commercial value, in relation with objects that have been conceived and designed to merge function and esthetics. Right now, I am working a lot on drawing. I think these window displays are a preparation for a line of work that will integrate these materials into my drawings.
L’Ecritoire design: Our new window displays contain strange objects : transparent cubes filled with… rubbish, ripped pieces of paper bags! Vladimir Carvajal, painter and creator of these window displays, answers our questions.
Vladimir, you have now conceived several window displays for L’Ecritoire design. Why this line of work?
The displays for the storefronts of L’Ecritoire design allow me to explore new artistic ideas. In fact, I should also say that sometimes, my work as an artist gives me ideas for storefront displays. So it goes in both directions! Another advantage is that the storefront displays give me the opportunity to show things to the public at a pretty fast turnover, which I find interesting.
Your latest displays are pretty discreet but if we look carefully, we are quite surprised: we discover cubes filled with plastic nets for fruit and vegetables, pieces of wrapping, bits of cardboard, in other words, rubbish. Why rubbish?
There are several reasons. Let us maybe start with what inspired me at first. I travel every year to my country, Cuba, where I spend a few weeks. It so happens that Cuba is changing. The country is faced with a mass of tourists, something it has not seen since the Revolution. It makes me think of a shock between two worlds: with tourism come large amounts of new objects which were forbidden to us Cubans (thank you Blockade!!), and also large amounts of wrappings! Kids are for example fascinated by candy wrapping with drawings of bunnies! All this is completely new. Before, candies came in little brown bags. And so households suddenly find themselves with all these wrappings, but the garbage collection system cannot keep up. So this rubbish ends up in the street. The streets of Havana, which were clean during the '80s, are now dirty! This struck me, this collision of two worlds, and I have now lots of projects around this theme.
And the window displays arise from this experience?
Yes in a way. One must realize that the use of rubbish by artists is now an old tradition! But for me, it is the contrast of the Havana streets “before” and “after” that initiated this line of work. For the window displays, I simply wanted to give a few winks: the cubes of course, but also the little pieces of paper wrapping whose motifs intrigued me: either drawings I liked, or texts. These objects are small and rather discreet, because the first function of a storefront is to allow the display of items that are for sale.
So do you find beauty in these pieces of rubbish?
Certainly. The different materials are interesting, the colors… On a day to day basis, we see these pieces of rubbish and ignore them, or we get irritated to find them where they should not be. I wanted, by “formatting” them in a discreet manner, give them a new look that could catch our eyes, all this with a bit of humor… In rolling tightly these pieces of wrapping, I have in a way reproduced the candy box in which we have all put our hand. So the loop is closed. And I put these pieces of rubbish, which have, by essence, no commercial value, in relation with objects that have been conceived and designed to merge function and esthetics. Right now, I am working a lot on drawing. I think these window displays are a preparation for a line of work that will integrate these materials into my drawings.