Before walking into the David Zwirner’s gallery today to see Jason Rhoades’s PeaRoeFoam, I attempted to mentally prepare myself to see art that would inevitably make me question: this is art? Yet even after hyping myself up, looking at the seemingly messy array of foam, glue, disks, yellow boots, chairs, peas and frankly things that just looked like garbage, I still could not help but think, “this is art?”

I have always thought the most important thing about art is the statement that the artist is trying to make. So, after Professor Eversaly explained an amazing point of view of the art, everything really came together for me.

This art was dada; it was meant to make me feel dumb. These sculptures are a thoughtful disarray of garbage, and they are being sold. If I think its crazy that one would spend money on the art being displayed, then actually, I am really getting the whole point. We purchase meaningless products all the time! Moreover, we are happy to spend a ridiculous amount of money on those products too! Jewelry is a prime example. What is a diamond? It’s a rare rock. Though its obvious to everyone that we are clearly not really paying for the rock, rather we are paying for the status and the meaning of a diamond, maybe regardless that purchase is still a little ridiculous! The dada was telling us we should feel dumb for wasting our money on meaningless things- on garbage.

I think Rhoades makes a valuable, and usually glossed over point. People do not generally consider this because nobody wants to admit that the shopping and purchases they love, are also a bit ridiculous.

In addition, I love the way the artist chose to make this statement. After understanding the backdrop, the “stuff” really does come together as art. It shouts in your face, “you think its absurd that someone would pay for garbage? Well you do it all the time.”

However, when watching the film of the art being created, something began to bother me. I watched the artists work with the tremendous amounts of supplies and having already been put in a “money” mindset, I could not help see all their supplies as a (for lack of a better expression) “waste of money!” I thought to myself, “wow, that much glue is probably expensive, look at them just pouring it everywhere!”

Thus, though I appreciate the message the artist was sending I am left a bit perplexed. If it is such a bad thing to throw away money then I wonder, was buying all that supplies the absolute most meaningful way for that money to be spent? Was there truly nothing more worthwhile to give this money to?

I was left with a new question: Wouldn’t it be ironic if the art making the statement “you waste your money” was a waste of money in and of itself?