Agglomerations is a continuation of an experimental technique Simon developed when invited to show at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Created by grafting waste plastic onto metal armatures, Agglomerations is a collection of hand-recycled plastic sculpture made over the last year in the artist’s Detroit studio. Carefully composed of plastics that would otherwise last forever in a landfill, the works are sculptures pretending to be paintings: colorful, playful pieces often mounted to the wall, hung with care in a gallery, museum, or your home. Working across the mediums of art, architecture, design and material science Simon’s pieces are explorations that tell a story about our ecological waste, history and our relationship with the built world.
Simon Anton (Detroit, MI; he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist, designer, and educator that collaborates across the fields of architecture, interior design, furniture, art, and jewelry. He is the co-founder of Thing Thing, a design collective that experiments in the transformation of post-consumer, hand-recycled polyethylene plastic sourced from surrounding communities and from industrial manufacturing. He facilitates “Transforming Trash,” where he works with youth in Detroit to transform community plastic waste into art. He is also the cofounder of Got Grief House where he promotes art as a means of grief counseling. His work has been presented at the Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale, Expo Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Anton received a Master of Fine Arts in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BS Architecture from the University of Michigan.
