Most people visit thrift stores looking for something useful, but Dianne and Jim Bess went looking for trouble, turning thrift-store castoffs into an exhibition where art is mischievous. The Afterlife of Discarded Objects — currently on view at Voice Gallery in La Cumbre Plaza through November 27 — alludes to consumerism and the awful impact it has on our planet.
For two years, they shopped at thrift stores from coast to coast, rescuing the bizarre, the whimsical, the forgotten, and the inexplicable. They paired unlikely companions, turning the improbable combinations into sculptures and gave all 600 a quirky title.
Collectively, Dianne and Jim have been creating art for more than 158 years, but BessDiscardia may be their most audacious undertaking yet. With 600 one-of-a-kind sculptures created from objects that might otherwise have ended up forgotten on a thrift store shelf or in a landfill, they created an exhibition that is funny, irreverent, and deliberately hard to categorize.
Underneath the mischief is a serious question: Who decides what has value – and when does something discarded become worth saving? Visitors are invited to look, laugh, disagree, and reconsider their definition of art.
BessDiscardia: The Afterlife of Discarded Objects is on view from November 3-27 at Voice Gallery at La Cumbre Plaza, 100 S. Hope Ave., Unit H124. For more information visit bessdiscardia.com.
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