The Dumpster Diver Gallery @ 734 South Street held a gala in honor of their 17th anniversary as an anarchist art collective dedicated to making art from cultural refuse. Like the gleaners in a Millet painting, this disparate group sifts through the remnants of contemporary culture creating junque, elegant objects, witty pronouncements, versatile visions as if gathering potatoes in a French field.  Ellen Benson‘s mixed media constructions from old books and Lincoln Logs throb with vague dreams of lives past; each anthropomorphic object has a funky little personality all it’s own, Benson is on a mission to create 1000 dolls, she’s approaching 500.  

Randy Dalton has recreated the Blue Grotto in the back of the sprawling space;  DoN LoVeS seeing funky old computers like the Mac blue-and-white monitor being used as an art object like some retrofitted Neuromancer future style.  DoN‘s blue-n-white glowed purple and made a zapping sound early in the morning a while back but it’s still in the basement, too beautiful to throw away.  Neil Benson‘s lamp made of stacked tin boxes is a museum piece; each box filled with memetic waves forms depending on the pattern printed on the thin folded metal.   The Dumpster Divers on South Street is like William Gibson‘s future city built on the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge after the grid goes down and a whole society develops meeting every need from noodle soup to watch repair.  

Artists are taking the city over from City Hall to South Street, Kensington to University City, Rittenhouse Square to Pretzel Park; art is more than just on the surface, it’s being built in. 

Ellen Benson with her dolls @ Dumpster Divers on South Street.

Randy Dalton’s Blue Grotto @ Dumpster Divers.