Material World: David Welch vs. Consumer Society

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

24 hours a day from TV screens and cinemas, from radio speakers, from the pages of newspapers and Internet sites, we hear, see and read: "Buy!", "Buy!", "Buy!" Our society is built on endless consumption, and our culture matches it (remember at least artistically dubious, but insanely expensive works by Damien Hirst). But not everyone likes this established order of things. For example, the artist struggles with this through his creativity. David Welchwho created a series of photographs Material World.

We look in amazement at our fathers and grandfathers, who know how to fix various things and, thereby, significantly extend their life, instead of buying new ones as they break down. In the modern consumer society, this is perceived as nonsense, anachronism, and such people eventually become a thing of the past.

But not everyone has come to terms with the constant desire for consumption, which has become our life. Including, among these "non-compliant" and many creative people, artists. For example, the French Emile Barret and Laurent Ponce, who created the series of illustrations "Le Marche" (The Market), Aurora Robson with her installations from plastic bottles, or David Welch and his photographs from series "Material World" ("Material World").

These photographs clearly show that in the modern world much more products are produced than is necessary, and people buy much more things than they really need. And from this, both people themselves, in particular, and the planet Earth, in general, suffer.

The cornucopia, which the ancient Greeks so dreamed of, in our time has ceased to be an unattainable fantasy. But it turns out that this is not so good. After all, the goods pouring out of it fill the planet, provoking a new Global Flood, in which, instead of water, the planet will be flooded by our greed, greed and immoderation. At least that's what David Welch thinks.