The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

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  1

  manifestyourdestiny

  06/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

  You're kidding, right? I have so many issues with this post, I don't know where to start. But here goes:
  
  1) A trash can is not art, even if it's yellow. A quick search would indicate that I can find an "aesthetically appealing" trash can with a similar look and the same functional features as the Vipp (8-gallon, pedal, stainless steel, blah, blah, blah) for anywhere between $50 and $100. A coat of yellow enamel does not add $400 of artistic value. Nice try.
  
  2) The sweatshop comment is way out of line. Mintzberg didn't say to buy an $8 trash can; he said buy a $30 trash can. That's a pretty nice trash can. (And I'm not convinced that even an $8 trash can is necessarily produced in a sweatshop.)
  
  3) The iPhone/rotary phone analogy makes no sense. Last time I checked, I couldn't surf the web, listen to music, navigate to my destination, take photos, or send an email from my rotary phone. Heck, I can't even use it to make a call from my car. The iPhone offers infinitely more value than a rotary phone. It's also infinitely more navigable than a Windows Mobile phone, AND it's prettier. So sure, it's worth more. Duh.
  
  4) Mintzberg isn't saying we shouldn't attend the opera or buy a piece of art. He's simply saying that NO ONE needs a $500 trash can; there is virtually no incremental value between a $30 can and a $500 can. When you reach the point that you're actually considering spending $500 on a trash can, it's pretty safe to assume that you have some decent art on the wall (if you care about that sort of thing) and/or you can afford a few opera (or Broadway or rock concert) tickets. If not, then by all means, buy a $30, or $100, trash can and SPEND THE EXTRA $400 ON SOME REAL ART. The money will go to a deserving artist instead of padding the bottom line of a company that manages to sell a $100 product for 5 times that much.
  
  Bottom line, I'm with Mintzberg. I see the Vipp trash can as the perfect symbol of the ever-widening gap between the richest and the poorest in this world. Doesn't mean I don't value art.

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  jeff1001

  06/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: to manifest

  Mintzberg is way off base on this one. His position taken to its logical conclusion is that the world goes back to subsidence existence, b/c, Why should anyone have any luxury of any sort whatsoever if there's one hungry, homeless, & etc. person in the world?
  
  The fact is, capitalism, not charity has produced the highest standard of living in the history of the world. In fact, charity, as has been proven in many, many studies, contributes to poverty and other problems. For example, the biggest problem in Africa today is that it's easier for rulers to impoverish their nations, receive aid from the developed world, steal most of the aid, and leave their countries in shambles. An African women/scholar has just published a book on this.

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  manifestyourdestiny

  06/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

  Jeff: Again, you are reading far too much into Mintzberg's comment. He never said we shouldn't have "any luxury of any sort whatsoever." He simply commented on the excessiveness of a $500 trash can, for God's sake. Can we not all agree that a $500 trash can is obscenely excessive? And do you really consider the argument that "charity is bad" a justification for spending $500 on a TRASH CAN???

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  4

  Nugby

  06/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

  First and foremost, who finds that yellow bin aesthetically pleasing in the first place. A $30 bin with a $470 artwork hanging above it would do a lot more for me. For everything else, well said, manifestyourdestiny.

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  hellodavid

  06/09/09 | Report as spam

  RE: The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

  This post regrettably confuses the social functions of design
  and art as well. Both have aesthetic dimensions that we
  humans value, but neither is in conflict with the necessity of
  humans to transact. Or the choices we make when we do.
  Mintzberg speaks a truth which each of us should reflect on,
  and consider how to reduce the flow of trash while we are at
  it.

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  seansilverthorne@...

  06/11/09 | Report as spam

  Why can't a trash can be art, too?

  "A trash can is not art, even if it's yellow." Why not? Art can't be functional, or a functional object can't be artistic? Is Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water not a piece of art because it's also a house? As the researchers suggests, "art" is not clearly distinguishable from non-art. BTW, Vipp's trash can designs ARE in art museums.
  
  "Can we not all agree that a $500 trash can is obscenely excessive?" No, we can't. It might be obscenely excessive to you, but not to someone who values the design at $500. What's the sliding scale you are using to gauge obscenity? Is $200 OK? $75? $10?
  
  It's funny that these angry posts go to the heart of exactly what the researchers see as the problem -- that art is increasingly perceived as something rareified (or snobby), and thus becoming less a part of mainstream life.
  
  
  

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  ISEA

  06/12/09 | Report as spam

  RE: The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

  I don't get the problem. We live in a relatively free market, the rules of supply and demand are out there, if there is a demand for a $500 trash can, and a company is making money off it, where is the issue?? I personally would never pay that, but instead would settle for the $30 version, but I don't really care if someone else has the money or thinks that $500 gets them a piece of art vs a trash collection container.

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  TomGrinley

  06/15/09 | Report as spam

  RE: The World Needs More $500 Trash Cans

  If, "artists scoff at the thought of being commercialized", then why the hell are they creating $500 trash "bins"?
  
  If it's okay for artists to make money they would be better off assigning some obscure, mind-numbing title to this yellow trash can, place it in fornt of some municpial and charge the tax payers $500,000.