Trash into treasure: Miami artist rewards local ‘eyeball’ collectors
Barring something radical, Ahol Sniffs Glue, the artist name of David Anasagasti, always will be known as Ahol Sniffs Glue.
But that doesn’t mean that Anasagasti can’t experience his own life upheavals.
After years of “putting (himself) in certain situations,” Anasagasti told the Miami Herald the pandemic made him realize that he wanted to get sober — and not be someone who was “celebrating killing (himself).”
Bicycling the city’s emptied streets sober the past year has saved his life, he said — and created a new art pathway. During his rides, Anasagasti began “tagging” pieces of trash with his signature stylized eyeball. He then posted photos on social media, and Ahol aficionados — he has more than 39,000 followers on Instagram — ventured out to figure out where he deposited them.
Now his efforts are the subject of an initiative of Florida International University’s Ratcliffe Art + Design Incubator and the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab-FIU documenting and cataloging the works. And it is acknowledging the role collectors themselves play in activating the art by giving them NFTs that cement their ownership of an original Ahol work.
“David is a good example of someone who’s a practicing artist and taking technology, taking social (media) ... and giving us the opportunity, from a teaching and learning perspective, teaching students how to apply those skills in an entrepreneurial spirit,” said Brian Schriner, dean of the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts at Florida International University. “That’s the larger vision this fits into.”
Martha Sesin, a resident art historian at FIU, says Anasagasti’s project was a perfect play off pandemic frustrations.
“We were all confined to our homes, being asked to keep our distance, and he brought the community together and opened up a space of imagination, opened up a certain joyful quality at a time it was very much needed,” she said.
The works are rooted in the dadaism of Marcel DuChamp’s “Readymades” (think urinals as art) and Andy Warhol’s pop art of everyday things, Sesin said. By leveraging social media, Anasagasti has made the often inaccessible art world a community project.
“He’s taking trash objects and giving them a new life,” she said.
An exhibition of Anasagasti’s works will be unveiled during Miami Art Week.
For him, everything that has come together since he started riding has been pure icing on the cake.
“I just found that I loved getting up, getting out of the city — I just needed to mash up a new high,” he said.
This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 1:00 AM.
