About the Exhibition

Telling the truth through my work is the responsibility of the person who is viewing the work. I’m just bringing to light a question about environmental issues and post-human consumption. What is the viewer’s contribution to my art supply? -Daniel Lanzilotta

GARNER Arts Center is pleased to present Tell The Truth, a new exhibition of sculpture from Environmental Artist and Sustainability Advocate, Daniel Lanzilotta. In his sculptures, Lanzilotta transcends the boundaries of sculptural meaning, interaction, movement and abstraction in his depictions of 21st Century life.

Lanzilotta brings significance to the seemingly insignificant use of post-consumer waste to create works of art. Daniel works with plastic waste, detritus, rubbish, fragments of litter, trash, flotsam and jetsam. He works predominantly with plastic ocean debris and calls himself a ‘Plastician’. His work is both a celebration and wake-up call about the items humans cast away in the environment.

With this exhibition, Daniel dares to explore, in narrative and technique, forms and materials that are unprotected by rules and history. These sculptures create new conventions and communal ideas of awareness, beauty, and emotional connectedness. The artworks eloquently struggle against ingrained habits and familiar assumptions, bringing the viewer to a profound understanding of our disposable lifestyles while simultaneously launching us toward an intentional place far away from the culture of consumption.

Daniel and GARNER Arts Center Curator-At-Large Jonathan Shorr have teamed up to teach the students at Haverstraw Community Center with Sustainability Engineer Ray Mosquea and HCC Project Coordinator Tim Sanders while they further support Haverstraw’s Sustainability Movement “to become the most sustainable community in New York State”.  During his residency, Daniel created Happy Consumer, one of his large public sculptures using 500 laundry bottles from Los Primos laundromat’s two-week collection of recycled bottles.  Amongst other community projects, they are spearheading, with Mr. Mosquea, a project to help Los Primos attain a sustainable model.  Lanzilotta and Shorr are supplementing his exhibition with interviews, a documentary and classes to make his exhibition also serve as a Sustainability Incubation Center during the run of the show in Building 35. 

Beyond the stunningly evocative exhibition of blazing explosions of color sculptures, these art pieces are built with uncoded usage that seamlessly intrigue viewers and connect our humanness with nature.  “In the American culture, we’ve lost track of what something [really] is.”  Daniel has been materializing his artistic vision by collecting debris, rubbish, and plastic waste for the past twenty-four years.  One thing he does not lack is mindfulness, which led him to honor both his artistic whims and deepest convictions beginning in his early twenties.

A native New Yorker, born in the Bronx, Daniel Lanzilotta holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Lanzilotta is an Artist in Residence at GARNER Arts Center. His artwork has been exhibited widely on most every continent.