An Opulence of Squander, curated by Weiyi Chang, brings together works from the Belkin’s collection and archive with artists that consider concepts of surplus and excess to question the dual ascription of artistic work as a form of both luxury and waste. Taking its title from an essay by artist Kelly Wood, An Opulence of Squander is composed of works unified by their critique of the pursuit of perpetual growth under capitalist regimes and its demand for continuous production. Within mainstream economic paradigms, measures of productivity, such as gross domestic product, gross national income, unemployment rates and consumer and producer price indices, are treated as indicators of a society’s collective social, political and cultural well-being. However, the current climate crisis poses a challenge to the doctrine of productivity, highlighting the waste and excesses that are often a by-product of economic growth.

This reading room offers resources relating to the themes and artists present in this exhibition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Seminar Series: Aim High, Degrowth: Dialogues on Growth.

–––––– “Aim High, Degrow Session #1: Degrowth: a slogan, a movement or a concept?” YouTube, November 22, 2023, video, 58:35, https://youtu.be/bQA7aHrmObs?si=06s4BBe26UgPPb_1.

–––––– “Aim High, Degrow Session #2: Decolonization and feminism: does degrowth cut it?” YouTube, December 14, 2023, video, 1:09:25, https://www.youtube.com/live/dLmYvUOULds?si=S6G8yhIT1MSyLTFE.

–––––– “Aim High, Degrow Session #3: Degrowth and the city: urbanization and planning for degrowth,” YouTube, February 5, 2024 video, 1:09:00,

https://youtu.be/HVNFSuHYFww?si=UVGBrF4_Jnp4Mtpp.

–––––– “Aim High, Degrow Session #4: Degrowth and systems: back to the caves or back to the future?” YouTube, February 15, 2024, video, 1:04:05,

https://youtu.be/xSXoOWwuL8g?si=n3ZRsz43Q811ifQy.

This seminar series was organized by York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change from 2023/24. The seminars focus on the relationship between degrowth and related fields, including the debates within the degrowth field, the historically underrecognized contributions of eco-feminist thinkers and activists, the impact of degrowth on cities and urban planning and the energy sector. The seminars bring together an international group of scholars and offers a high-level introduction to multiple topics within contemporary degrowth discourse.

Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy (New York: Zone Books, 1991).

Bataille articulates a theory of general economy that aims to provide an expansive, ecological account of the totality of human and more-than-human activities of production and consumption. He differentiates general economy from traditional economic science; while the latter restricts its object of analysis exclusively to humankind’s economic activities, general economy is grounded upon the creation and circulation of energy sourced from the sun.

Jason W. Moore, “Introduction,” in Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (London: Verso Books, 2015), 3-24.

Moore presents a unified theory of capitalism and nature that bridges the historical divide between society and nature. Moore analyzes the historical emergence of capitalism and its reliance on “cheap nature,” defined as food, labour, raw materials and energy. The necessity of cheap nature demonstrates capitalism is not merely an economic system, but rather a logic of organizing and de/valuing nature.

Johan Rockstrom, et al. “A safe operating space for humanity,” Nature 461 (24 September 2009): 472-475, https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a.

The authors posit a new approach for defining the necessary preconditions for human development and flourishing based on nine interlinked planetary boundaries. Recognizing the impact of the Anthropocene, the geological era in which human activity has become the main driver of global environmental change, the authors suggest that defining a set of planetary boundaries against which anthropogenic-change can be measured may provide a way to quantify and prevent breaching critical thresholds.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Manifesto for Maintenance Art –– Proposal for an Exhibition. 1969. https://queensmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Ukeles-Manifesto-for-Maintenance-Art-1969.pdf.

In 1969, American artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles wrote a proposal for an exhibition based on the concept of maintenance art. The proposal, written as a manifesto, posits a dualism between development and maintenance, death and life. Ukeles associates the former with avant-garde art, revolution, purist creation and progress and the latter with preservation, conservation, repetition and sustenance. Ukeles’s exhibition proposal took aim at what she viewed as the inordinate privileging of certain forms of productive labour, to the detriment and devaluation of essential but comparatively less exciting care work.

Kelly Wood: The Continuous Garbage Project, 1998-2003 (Vancouver: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 2003).      

Kelly Wood’s Continuous Garbage Project is a series of photographs of Wood’s trash, collected over the course of five years. Marking the first opportunity to see the work in its entirety, this exhibition catalogue provides both images of the artwork and essays that parse out the deeper implications of the photographic project. From discussions of commodity culture and ethical consumption to an interpretation of the work as an “anti-autobiography,” the catalogue provides a glimpse at the project beyond a surface-level reading focused on the importance of recycling and reduction of waste.

Image (above): Howard Ursuliak, Mattresses (detail), 1994. Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, anonymous gift, 2005.