Las Vegas artist transforms trash into art
The makings of Steven Spann’s art — the raw materials of his imagination — lay scattered around a showroom space in Building A of the World Market Center.
Piles of pallets leaning against a wall. Bundles of bubble wrap. Cans of paint. Rolls of fabric. Copious collections of decorative odds and ends and home furnishing detritus.
All are discards — trash, really — from exhibitors of the summer 2017 edition of the Las Vegas Market, a twice-yearly furniture, home decor and gift market. And all of that random stuff is fodder for Spann’s artistic inclinations and an exhibition, “Trashed in Vegas,” which ran during the show.
When they viewed it, visitors didn’t see just gussied-up trash. The paintings on discarded canvases, trashed fabrics turned into handbags and kids’ clothing, foam packing containers transformed into abstract three-dimensional wall art, and a series of mismatched lampshades that now make up a precarious bit of sculpture are as much about philosophy as they are about art.
Last week’s Las Vegas Market show marked Spann’s fourth. He calls his style post-consumption social practice to denote “this combination of using trash, but using trash in such a way that it’s curated by other people.”
Take the large painting that had been tossed because it had “a giant hole in the canvas,” says Spann, who filled in the missing section with a piece of burlap, repainted the canvas with paint an exhibitor had thrown away, and included in the refurbished piece a series of words provided by guests at the show.
“It was almost a collective co-creation,” Spann explains. “So my direction and where I’m going with a piece is crafted by others.”
Or, take the foam packing-crate pieces that came with raised and sunken edges designed to protect the items the crates held. “I didn’t craft the designs in foam, someone else did,” Spann explains. “So I look at it as co-creation, even though I have no idea who created it.”
All of his pieces are made out of items that were taken from a dumpster or were on their way to one, and all were scrounged onsite at the show. Spann even uses only paint colors rescued from the trash, forcing him to work with a color palette chosen by others.
Creating art only out of found trash certainly offers Spann, 48, an artistic challenge, but he says, “ We live in a day of so much choice and so many variables that I think it does something when you free yourself and force yourself to work within very tight constraints.”
Working with limited choices — whether it’s a trashed chair he doesn’t know what to do with or discarded cans of paint in colors he finds unappealing — “frees you to do things you might not otherwise do, and it’s a big incubator for innovation,” Spann says.
An artist can feel more free to experiment when using inexpensive materials, and that artistic looseness can lead to innovation, Spann says. At the same time, “it’s about the potential of things and objects and people, especially now, when we live in a time where people write people off and write objects off.”
An ornate framed mirror leaning against a wall illustrates another of Spann’s artistic credos. “If I had a slogan here, it should be, ‘Everything looks good from a distance,’ ” he says, noting the cracks and damaged areas that weren’t visible across the room.
“I’m not really interested in perfection. I’ve never been interested in perfection. I think perfection is a complete waste of time because it’s not ever going to happen, right?”
“So let’s say you start with an object. OK, this object is worthless, it has no value, it means nothing to me. You massage it a little bit, make it look different, and now it has value, it means something to me and it has worth. See that change? It’s like a pretty dramatic shift.”
He laughs. “Plus, your material costs are free, so profit margins are higher.”
The art of the deal
Steven Spann’s message and his style of art have appealed to buyers who appreciate the creativity required to turn discarded items into art.
Spann still recalls the buyer of one of his early pieces, which was on display in a show here.
“I got a call from the secretary and she said, ‘Donald Trump is here and he’s interested in buying your painting, but he wants half-off and he wants it wrapped and he wants it delivered to his plane within an hour.’
“I said, ‘You’re joking, right?’ She said, ‘No, he’s standing behind me right now.’ ”
Spann laughs.
“The only reason I tell that story is because he’s known for having really bad taste in art.”
Contact John Przybys at reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.
