RECYCLE SERIES BY CONSTANTIN BOYM (1988)
Created in 1988, ‘Recycle’ was Boym Partners’ first independent project. It was prescient, controversial, and established a subtle methodology that would continue throughout Constantin Boym’s later work: begin with something familiar and alter its context until it can be recognized as newly relevent.
At the time, recycling was a relatively unexplored subject in design. Constantin decided to approach it culturally rather than environmentally, seeking to preserve what he described as the “aesthetic and cultural significance of everyday things.” The series included over 40 original objects, each work incorporating at least one common object: a bottle, plate, wine glass, clock, candle, or “anything so familiar as to pass virtually unnoticed in people’s daily use.” The complete collection was exhibited at Gallery 91 at the end of 1988 in New York City, Constantin’s first exhibition in the city. The entire collection was produced using a portable table saw and simple tools, made from the backyard of a tiny converted toolshed in Greenwich village.
At the time, recycling was a relatively unexplored subject in design. Constantin decided to approach it culturally rather than environmentally, seeking to preserve what he described as the “aesthetic and cultural significance of everyday things.” The series included over 40 original objects, each work incorporating at least one common object: a bottle, plate, wine glass, clock, candle, or “anything so familiar as to pass virtually unnoticed in people’s daily use.” The complete collection was exhibited at Gallery 91 at the end of 1988 in New York City, Constantin’s first exhibition in the city. The entire collection was produced using a portable table saw and simple tools, made from the backyard of a tiny converted toolshed in Greenwich village.
Each of the 40 common objects were shapeshifted via simple or elaborate structures made from plywood, concrete, or metal. These contrasting materials outlined, isolated, and elevated the objects into new creations. A wine glass became a vase, a plate became a fruit bowl, and office supplies were reorganized into a desk landscape.
The Boyms connected this process to the Russian Formalist idea of defamiliarization: presenting the habitual as though it were being encountered for the first time. According to them, Recycle’s guiding principle could be summarized by the Formalist phrase:
“The old and habitual must be spoken of as if it were new and unusual.”
PROVOCATION & CRITIQUE:
The public made many speculations about the “Russian origins” of the Recycle series and Constantin did acknowledge this possible influence. He says that an outsider’s perspective may have made it easier to notice things that others overlooked; for example New York flea markets appeared to him like exhibitions of surrealist objects.
Overall, the project was warmly, though sometimes ironically, received. In a 1990 Interview magazine feature, Karrie Jacobs asked her readers “what kind of guy puts garbage in a frame?” However she had to admit, “two things about the Russians: they serve vodka at gallery openings, and they’re good at seeing things we don’t see.”
This provocation was part of the project’s strength. Recycle challenged the assumption that design begins with invention or expensive materials. Its objects gained importance through selection, framing, and a shift in attention. Few designers are able to work within such subtlety. While viewers often emphasized Constantin’s Russian background, the lasting significance of Recycle lies in the design strategy itself.
Overall, the project was warmly, though sometimes ironically, received. In a 1990 Interview magazine feature, Karrie Jacobs asked her readers “what kind of guy puts garbage in a frame?” However she had to admit, “two things about the Russians: they serve vodka at gallery openings, and they’re good at seeing things we don’t see.”
This provocation was part of the project’s strength. Recycle challenged the assumption that design begins with invention or expensive materials. Its objects gained importance through selection, framing, and a shift in attention. Few designers are able to work within such subtlety. While viewers often emphasized Constantin’s Russian background, the lasting significance of Recycle lies in the design strategy itself.
SELECTED OBJECTS
Wine Glass Vase
The form of a wine glass roughly cut into a metal form resembling an I-beam. Abrasions and negative space remain. The contrast between the delicate glass and the crude surrounding makes the object seem both protected and estranged. An opening on the top of the metal supports a tall flower or plant should someone decide to place one within.
Cake Stand
A glass French plate affixed to a small wooden stand. This angular base composed of only straight lines meets a transcient partner - a glass plate with no straight lines at all. The choice of glass for this common plate is an apropriate metaphor as it appears to dissapear into the background. A form emerges that resembles a trophy or a shrine more closely than a cake stand.
Dinner Plate Fruit Bowl
A simple white plate is held within an angular wooden frame. The construction does not conceal the plate’s original purpose; instead, it raises the edges and extends the boundaries of the plate. A modest household arrangement now begins to resemble a still life or small stage.
Six-Pack Vase
The ubiquitous six-pack of beers is transformed into an enduring sculptural object. There is no branding or flashy slogan; what was designed to be temporary now becomes permanent. By retaining the recognizable form of a six-pack while assigning it a new function, Constantin Boym quietly questions where consumption ends and cultural memory begins.
Desk Organizer
Commonplace office supplies like a calculator, pencil, and paper clips are organized along a wooden support. Separated from the clutter of an actual desk, these functional tools become a sculptural composition.
Milk Carton Vase
A milk carton sits inside a wooden frame outlined in a patterned material reminiscent of Memphis design. The cardboard carton, typically thrown away immediately after its use, has now lasted generations longer than its counterparts. Sitting enshrined in a telescopic structure, its form is extended and so is our understanding of this simple object.
Pocket Watch Table Clock
A Bullseye pocket watch suspended within a concrete block becomes a table clock. The clock is no longer (easily) portable, yet it does the same thing as before. The use has not changed, just the interpretation. A material often considered crude, unimportant, and far from luxury is the architect of this transformation from common object into a work of art.Cup Holder
A single cup sits within a rectangular and humble concrete form. The cup holder encases from top and bottom, partially covering the opening of the cup. The common object is memorialized.
Candlestick Frame
A simple plywood frame surrounds a burning candle. By replacing the expected painting, photograph, or other image with an everyday object, Boym Partners redirect attention from representation toward presence itself. The frame no longer functions as a boundary around art, but as a device for focusing attention towards, in this case, an ordinary domestic ritual.
Recycled Containers Vases
Plastic household containers are held within oversized plywood structures, their handles and molded shapes treated as formal design features rather than disposable packaging. These works demonstrate the central logic of the series rather directly: the material remains ordinary and the form does not hide the ordinary, but rather changes how it is valued and understood through the act of framing.
Beer Bottle Vase
Three ordinary beer bottles are stripped of their labels, held inside a precisely constructed wooden framework, and shapeshift into a vase. The arrangement preserves the bottles’ recognizable industrial form while making them appear architectural and ceremonial. They have no brand allegience, shifting attention away from the product and toward form, repetition, color, and use.IN CONCLUSION:
Long before upcycling became common design language, the Recycle Series proposed discarded things as cultural evidence. Questioning the notion of defamiliarization, commonplace, and humor, Constantin Boym created this series as a form of recognizing how much social history, visual culture, and emotional association already exists within the objects people stopped noticing long ago.
In his own words: “framing served as a necessary artistic device, a strategem for removing objects from their conventional contexts. There is an old defintion of poetry: making new things familiar and familiar things new. In this respect, my pieces could be called object-poems.”
