Appliance art with Stonefridge: A Fridgehenge

March 8th, 2013

Appliance Talk Fridges & Freezers

Here at Appliances Online, we’re no strangers to seeing appliances used in unusual ways.  From cooking sausages in the kettle to fish in the dishwasher, we’ve found a wide range of warranty-voiding ways that appliances really aren’t meant to be used.

But one of our favourite creative uses for appliances is in the creation of art from what most of us think of as garbage.  We’ve looked at washing machines for your brain, paintings on fridges, and Warhol-inspired rangehoods.

But we’ve never quite seen anything on the scale of “Stonefridge: A Fridgehenge” – an open-air installation in the medium of abandoned fridges from artist and filmmaker, Adam Jonas Horowitz.

Source: Artificial Owl

Made from more than 150 old fridges and an assortment of smaller appliances, originally destined for the landfill, this “megalithic, post-apocalyptic monument to consumerism” in the New Mexico desert was every bit as awe-inspiring as those stone monoliths on the Salisbury plain (though most likely a fair bit grubbier).

Source: Artificial Owl

Alas, the fridgehenge is no longer standing, having been taken down by Santa Fe city officials in 2007, ten years after the idea was first envisioned in 1997.

Source: Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky, July 18, 1997

Horowitz tells of endless headaches with getting the project approved from the local government, having to jump through endless hoops and negotiate tangles of red tape in the face of opposition from officials.

Source: Recyclart

He recalls the words of one city engineer:

“I think art is a painting you put on the wall, and garbage is garbage.  What you are doing, is garbage.”

After one and a half years of negotiating the bureaucracy, the project was finally approved. However, one week later, the city’s solid waste department destroyed Horowitz’s first collection of old fridges, “by accident.”

Source: Recyclart

Horowitz originally planned to only keep Stonefridge in place for two weeks, but the opposition he encountered led to media coverage and grassroots support, and the sculpture became a semi-permanent fixture, at least until 2007 when it was finally taken down for good, due to time, wind and vandalism taking its toll on the already dilapidated fridges.

Stonefridge did make an appearance in the mockumentary The Crushing Blow about Norwegian appliance musicians, Hurra Torpedo.  Extremely odd.

It would seem that fridges just have an artistic quality about them, being one of the appliances more commonly transformed into artworks.  Just check out Thomas Rentmeister’s works:

The Katrina Fridges of New Orleans also diod a great job of expressing the mood of a city post-disaster:

And of course, Stonehenge itself has also been an inspiration to artists working in more mediums than just fridges.  Check out the Carhenge:

Source: Artificial Owl

While future generations may not get to look upon Stonefridge: A Fridgehenge in wonderment, puzzling on what the curious arrangement REALLY means a la Stonehenge, there’s no such mystery about the fate of old fridges at Appliances Online.

When you buy a replacement fridge or any other appliance from us,  you can choose to have our delivery team also remove your old appliance, saving you the trouble of disposing of it yourself.  All of the appliances we collect are recycled thanks to our partners at Sims Metal Management and Wasteflex.  Find out more about it here.

Though maybe we should start moving into the art world…