From Art to Waste and Back: Beate Seckauer and her 'Waves'

Abstract

A student essay for the Special Student Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology accompanying the art exhibition 'Artist's Waste, Wasted Artists', which opened in Vienna on the 19th of September 2017 and was curated by the students of social anthropology at the University of Vienna. This essay deals not only with the question of how to distinguish art, but also with a particular case of an artwork by Beate Seckauer which has been demaged and thus turned into waste. However, having been exhibited as artistic waste, it's quality of art has been revived, thus going to show the dependence of what is defined as art on the institutional framework.

Keywords

• Beate Seckauer
• ceramic art
• art
• design