Adrian Arias is a man for all mediums. The award-winning poet, curator, and visual artist has successfully combined his formal training is in literature and philosophy with art in a variety of media: video, graphic art, photography and more.
During the month of December the 49-year-old Peruvian is the Artist-in Residence at San Francisco’s de Young Museum where he is taking on the controversial subject of discarded plastic in his project “Beautiful Trash: an aesthetic view of plastic waste.”
The multimedia exhibit is an artistic rendering of the ubiquitous use of and dependence on plastic in the every day lives of the public and the resultant beauty and destruction when it is discarded.
Arias came to the United States in 2000, visiting his parents in Miami, Florida, before landing in San Francisco. “This place is a vortex for creativity. Here I found a lot of opportunities to made art and to interact with community,” said Arias.
His father, Luis Arias Vera, was a well-known painter in the 1960s and ‘70s whose work was prized by collectors in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Although his mother, Maria Lopez, did not exhibit or get published, Arias credits her with also having a large influence him. “She was an artist, a writer and a visual artist,” said Arias.
When he was 8-years-old Arias watched his father prepare to show his work to collectors from the Houston Museum. After his father hung his paintings Arias placed a series of his own little oil pastels along the floor making a small sign indicating that they cost 25 cents.
“And one of the collector bought everything. I had about 30 or 40 little works. My grandmother congratulated me and said, ‘Wow you are an artist now because somebody likes your work and appreciates it.’”
Despite an early start in art, Arias studied literature and philosophy at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Lima, Peru. He might have continued on this path were it not for two events that pushed him towards art.
“My mentor at the university was the editor of a newspaper in Lima and he hired me to draw some little images for his daily column,” said Arias. When Arias asked him why he wanted him to draw instead of write, his observant mentor replied “I know that you are studying literature but I see you all the time drawing and maybe it’s something you need to explore.” Arias drew the daily images for three years.
Around the same time Arias was hired to photograph children’s faces for a project. This work took him throughout Lima and into the small towns that were developing around the capital as people migrated from their homes in the mountains and jungles to find work.
While Arias took 5,000 slides of children, he also began to photograph the people living in the pueblos. His first exhibition, which took place in 1986 in Santiago, Chile, was a collection of tempura and watercolors based on these photographs.
Since moving to the Bay Area Arias has been a prolific artist dappling in video, poetry, photography and more. He is the Multimedia Coordinator at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts.
The impetus for “Beautiful Trash” occurred while on vacation. “I was visiting Peru four year ago and walking on the shoreline when I discovered this small red cap on the beach. The red cap popped against the black stones. That piece for me was a symbol. It’s a soda cap. The cap is a human invention and it’s petroleum, which comes from the earth. It’s ancient material. I was thinking this is crazy but it’s so beautiful. It’s beautiful trash,” said Arias.
Soon Arias was going to the beach photographing small pieces of plastic. “To me they are like refugees, the Diaspora of plastic trying to connect with nature.”
Arias learned that in 1997 oceanographer Charles Moore had discovered a huge mass of floating plastic which has become known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “It’s like a soup of plastic floating in the North Pacific. Some people say it’s twice the size of Texas. But the other day I heard on the radio that it’s the size of the United States,” said Arias. “
Arias began to wonder about his relationship to plastic. “I started to ask why do I like that piece of plastic. Then I remembered that when I was maybe five or six I had a beautiful plastic toy and when I outgrew it, it was passed down to my brothers and then my sisters. Plastic was something special at the time and became part of our heritage. Not like now where we just waste it.”
Arias also remembers his grandmother recycling plastic bottles and bags, using them time and time again.
According to a sign in the “Beautiful Trash” exhibit, people use 41,000 plastic bottles per minute in the U.S. “That’s part of the contradiction. When I put together all my pictures I said this is not only art but it’s also a tool that can bring awareness to the audience about what is happening. That’s my goal.”
Arias proposed the project one year ago to the de Young Museum and then had to go through numerous conversations because it involved the use of found recycled objects.
He began collecting plastic objects nine months ago. And just like the currents from the North Pacific Gyre that gather the bits and pieces of discarded plastic to form the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Arias wanted his plastic collection to come to him via “currents.” He recruited his family and three friends to assist in the collection. A fifth current was the store where he purchased plastic buckets. “A part of my research was to feel very bad for going to the store and spending money on plastic.”
“I feel that it’s an honor to be here at the de Young and its an opportunity to open people’s eyes about the Latino community and that (Latinos) are doing art and doing very well and showing art in other places. It’s a good place to create art. It’s an open window.”
For himself, Arias has exhibited in Paris, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Canada, and several cities in South America, among others. His photography has won prizes in Japan.
Beautiful Trash runs through January 2, 2011, in the de Young’s Kimball Education Gallery. Every Friday at 3:33 p.m. Arias will perform 10-minute skits called “Plastic Character Surprise” based on seven moments in his life when plastic was important.
On Saturday, December 18, Arias will host a Recycling Poetry Day featuring San Francisco’s Poet Laureate Diana di Prima, Nina Serrano, Francisco Alarcon and Jack Hirschman.
In ending, Arias reflected on the consequence of a simple walk on the beach. “In this moment of my life, I am playing with plastic like a child because I found this small red cap while on vacation on Tortuga Beach in Peru.”
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