Pictures from a Rubbish Tip 1988 - 1989

Here we see a photograph by Keith Arnatt entitled "Pictures from a Rubbish Tip." The photograph presents a collection of discarded organic materials arranged on what appears to be a sheet of crumpled plastic, set against a background with a horizontal red stripe. The composition is a scattering of decaying food, scraps and pods, their forms soft and dissolving, suggesting the ravages of time and entropy. Arnatt's choice of subject matter confronts our notions of beauty, challenging conventional aesthetic values. By placing the abject – that which is typically discarded – in the formal context of a photograph, Arnatt asks us to reconsider our perceptions of value and disgust. There is a semiotic play at work here; waste becomes a signifier of consumption and excess. Ultimately, Arnatt’s formal composition, although seemingly random, functions as a mirror, reflecting back at us the uncomfortable truths about our relationship to the material world and the waste we produce.