Box Vox

packaging as content

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May 31, 2012

Discarded Containers in Modernist Arrangements


On left: “Black Oil Bottles” ; on right: “Oil, Alcohol and Drugs”  (Collected on the beach. Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, NY. Jamacia Bay, New York Harbor)

Recently learned of these photographs by Barry Rosenthal. (via: “Object Whisperer” Rob Walker’s MKTG site)

Discarded containers in modernist arrangements. Or at least that’s how the arrangements strike me. Because they are arranged on a flat surface and photographed from above, these container collections read more as pattern and graphic design than as objects in space. And from a certain perspective, flat and 2D = “modern.”

Although, these groupings are also reminiscent of how objects might be organized in a museum, so maybe they’re really “old school.”


On left: “Green Bottles and containers” (Collected on the beach. Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, NY. Jamacia Bay, New York Harbor); on right: “Clear Glass Jars and Bottles”(location Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn, NY. Jamacia Bay, New York Harbor)

Creating a decorative “order” from the “disorder” of litter & landfill, Rosenthal’s photographs seem to serve various constituencies. Clearly part of the Significant Objects meme, but equally at home in Austin Radcliffe’s Things Organized Neatly collection.

What is it about patterns of equally spaced objects that appeals to us? I reckon there’s some science behind it. Or maybe math.

(Another photograph, after the fold…)


“Brown and clear glass bottles and jars” (location Dead Horse Bay Brooklyn, NY. Jamacia Bay, New York harbor)

See also: Objectified and Bottle Beach

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