Simon Anton at M Contemporary
Plastic Future / Plastic Past
BY KIM FAY for Real Art Detroit, published June 19, 2025
"Plastic Future / Plastic Past" explores the layered, turbulent, and transformational history of Detroit through the lens of plasticity - both as material and metaphor. Rooted in the artist Simon Anton’s background in architecture, material design, and sculpture, this body of work investigates how the city’s architectural ornamentation, industrial legacies, and cultural narratives can be reinterpreted through experimental processes using recycled plastics.”
The Future and The Past
Locally sourced recycled plastic waste, steel, brass, nichrome
48” diameter
Image CJ Benninger
Pulled from some of Detroit’s most iconic buildings’ architectural embellishments, lines of unevenly applied melted plastic form into highly textural symmetry. The seemingly weightless pieces appear to hover and drift along the gallery walls.
Mayan Pacific Masonry
Locally sourced recycled plastic waste, steel, brass, nichrome
21 x 54 x 3 inches
Image CJ Benninger
Blue plastic flecks contribute to Mayan Pacific Masonry’s undulating waterlike waves. Cast shadows and the incorporation of black prevent these pieces from vanishing into the white background.
O Karamba
Locally sourced recycled plastic waste, steel, brass, nichrome
28 x 54 x 3 inches
Image CJ Benninger
Conspicuous due to its dominating black, O Karamba combines geometry with expression allowing irregularities to disclose the maker’s hand.
Rose Core Glyph
Locally sourced recycled plastic waste, steel, brass, nichrome
Dimensions variable
Image CJ Benninger
Rose Core Glyph detail
Image Kim Fay
This diptych’s graphical, balanced shape is the most ‘arty’ of all the offerings. Anton has blended multiple colors into his repurposed concoction resulting in something that reads like candy rather than sculpture. (you eat it, you bought it)
This is a decidedly quiet exhibition taking ornamental details designed to be noticed to a visual whisper. Anton reimagines discarded plastics in a more creative and far less destructive afterlife than floating in a Texas-sized waste island in the Pacific.
On view through July 12th at M Contemporary 205 E Nine Mile, Ferndale
*all images CJ Benninger unless otherwise noted
*direct quote from gallery materials
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