d e t r i t u s . n e t dedicated to recycled culture

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Max Ernst

An early master of collage and assemblage. Ernst's reworkings of 19th-century catalog engravings to form totally new images are legendary.

Kurt Schwitters

Inventor of Merz, his word for art made from garbage and other found material.

Marcel Duchamp

A key proponent of found art, inventor of the term "readymade". See his "L.H.O.O.Q.", a manipulation of the Mona Lisa.

Joseph Cornell

Creator of numerous small box sculptures filled with all sorts of found objects. (There's an exhibit of his works at SFMOMA till june 1998, if you're in the San Francisco area)

Pablo Picasso

Supposedly either Picasso or Braque invented collage, back in 1904 or something.

Robert Rauschenberg

Creator of numerous mixed media sculptures and paintings that steal liberally from everywhere. A Major retrospective exhibit is currently at the Guggenheim in New York City.

Andy Warhol

Pop Art innovator, he made silk screens of other people's photographs, sculptures of consumer products, and more.

Jeff Koons

Koons has repeatedly gotten into legal hot water for his appropriative art. He is best known for his "Banality" show which featured several large sculptures based from pre-existing photographs. The original photographers of 3 of the works sued him successfully, thus ensuring Koons' place in legal and art history.

Armand

Among his works are large sculptures made out of many copies of one object, like phone receivers.

Rebecca Bollinger

Deals with mundane or not so mundane previously existing portraits placed in new contexts. One recent exhibit featured hundreds of anonymous portraits printed onto food with a color cake printing machine.

Cindy Sherman

Takes self-portraits of herself in a variety of cliched situations as a commentary on gender roles, stereotypes, and media.

Sherry Levine

Makes photographs of famous photographs.

"[A]rt is long, not infinite... One day we will use it up - unless we
		can learn to recycle it like any other finite resource."
		- Spider Robinson, "Melancholy Elephants"