Art critic Penelope St Jean writes…
This project by Oboe Ngua is one of those series of works that should be mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt’s portraits, Michelangelo’s ceilings and even Billy Whaler’s epic paintings of asparagus spears from Suffolk allotments.
This particular photo is a classic of the series, an image where the ethereal beauty of the bin, qua bin, meticulously sits in an empty road, showing the links between human creativity and rubbish – trash to our North American friends. When you understand the aims of Oboe, this work is truly awe inspiring. I am certain that in the future – as long as a far-sighted museum purchases an entire edition – more people will visit and enjoy these bin photos than will visit the Sistine Chapel.
’But it’s just a picture of a bin,’ I have heard people say. What reductive madness makes people spout such nonsense. This is not just a bin, this is the classic, perfect, proto-bin, the bin of the people. This image shouts to us about the failings of democracy and the pained panic of so many 21st century endeavours. Any museum who doesn’t have this bin picture – or another from the series – on their walls asap, reveals themselves to be, in my opinion, not a serious gallery and I would advise boycotting them until they have a Binoto work in their collection.