Comprising the Point Reyes–based husband-and-wife team of Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang, One Beach Plastic has been combing Kehoe Beach for decades, collecting and categorizing its plastic debris. The resulting work of art, for here or to go, exists in a space between painting and sculpture. It features an exclusively white selection of their vast archive of sea-worn detritus that includes toothbrushes, toys, barrettes, bottle caps, connectors and fasteners, container fragments, and unidentifiable objects that the Langs have rescued from further erosion. Sited in the former Cliff House’s kitchen and presented on white ceramic plates, for here or to go eliminates the fish flesh that normally mediates our ingestion of microplastics, presenting a highly stylized buffet that reminds the viewer that the things we discard inevitably return to us in our food.
for here or to go, 2021; plastic collected at Kehoe Beach and ceramic dishware; courtesy of the artists
Since its founding, the collective One Beach Plastic (Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang) has gathered more than two tons of plastic debris from California’s Kehoe Beach, which is used to create sculptures and installations that call attention to the material’s environmental impact. The collective’s work has been presented in galleries, museums, and educational and science centers around the world.