Simon Fujiwara Ich (Wesco Double Master Maxi 40 DT), 2018
Domestic waste disposal unit, gold leaf, plinth
35,3 x 70 x 34,1 cm approx. (work)
80 x 45,5 x 34,5 cm (plinth)
Entitled Ich (or "I" in English), Simon Fujiwara's series of specialized models of recycling bins — coated in gold — in part result from the artist's take on his long-term residence in Germany where he has lived for over ten years. Considered a landmark of German ecological self-representation, recycling has come to be seen as an identifying characteristic. With its coating in precious metal the artist highlights the disparity between trash and identity, that is, a country's pride in waste disposal as self-defining property. The work is an updated and reified take on the readymade, as elegant and humorous as Marcel Duchamp's original gesture but also an ingenious, if light-hearted, take on German identity.