This studied classification of consumed goods ultimately reveals the private life of the person who once owned them. Thus composed and photographed, the contents of the trashcans become exhibits where once they were hidden from view.



Madonna, 1996

The original inspiration for this two-man project was an article in the daily newspaper Le Monde where a sociology professor explained a study he had carried out in which household waste was analysed in order to provide an understanding of consumerism and social behaviour. Bruno Mouron and Pascal Rostain found that this was both the opportunity to have some almost adolescent fun that was perfectly consistent with their profession : they decided to ‘go through the trash’ thrown away by their celebrity clients. The way they worked has as much to do with paparazzis as with sociology: it involved tracking down, locating and planning the collection of the waste that interested them.

They started with Brigitte Bardot, communist politician Georges Marchais, far-right politician Le Pen, disgraced multimillionaire businessman Bernard Tapie, tennis player Yannick Noah, and actor Gérard Depardieu. Encouraged by Daniel Filipacchi they continued their antics in Los Angeles, rifling through the trash thrown out by Brando, Nicholson, Madonna, Michael Jackson and even Ronald Reagan.

These “abject objets” we remove from our sight by throwing them away were then used as the raw material for their project. Back in their studio, they sorted through the material, then chose and displayed parts of it according to formal and taxinomic logic. This studied classification of consumed goods ultimately reveals the private life of the person who once owned them. Thus composed and photographed, the contents of the trashcans become exhibits where once they were hidden from view.

Pascal Rostain and Bruno Mouron have been ‘going through the trash’ for fifteen years, producing an inventory that is troubling from a moral, economic and even political point of view. But who’s upsetting whom? Who’s upsetting what? The subjects thamselves prefer to manage their obscenity rather than leaving it to others. The trashcan is the ultimate abjection ; it is even more scatological than bodily waste – it is ‘pornographic’ in that it denounces foibles, faults and deviances. Trash speaks to us of shame and shadow.

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