Young Guns
Trash Talk with Justin Gignac
The story behind YG5 winner’s curated cubes of hand-picked NYC trash
The story behind YG5 winner’s curated cubes of hand-picked NYC trash
“I have a big thick garbage bag, and I go out at night when the city is the dirtiest,” Justin Gignac remarks.
Before Justin became the Co-Founder of Working Not Working, a Young Guns 5 Winner, and sold NYC trash, he interned at MTV in 2000 as a college sophomore. During his internship, he had a conversation about the importance of package design, and one of his colleagues stated that it didn’t matter. Justin completely disagreed and went on a mission to prove his colleague wrong.
After about a year of brainstorming how to sell the most undesirable item on earth – trash, of course –Justin took to the streets of New York City and hand-picked discarded items off the ground. He artfully arranged his trash collection into ten clear 4.5-inch cubes that he signed and dated. Then he brought his trash cubes to Times Square with a silver spray-painted cardboard box that read, “Garbage for sale.”
After seven hours of sitting and waiting, he got his first buyer at about 10 PM. Justin recounted the memory, “An older man from Ecuador who didn’t even speak English came by, picked one up, laughed, and paid me five bucks for it.” After gaining confidence from this single buyer, he returned to the streets the next day and sold a few more cubes with the catchphrases, “Wherever you’re from your garbage sucks compared to ours” and “I touch it so you don’t have to.”
““Wherever you’re from your garbage sucks compared to ours” and “I touch it so you don’t have to.””
Next, he launched a NYC Garbage website and it took off from there. 1,400 people bought the cubes from all over the world. Justin couldn’t keep up with the demand so he kept raising the price, and eventually, when he raised the price to $50 people went from labeling it a joke or a cool souvenir to calling it art. “The art is in the transaction. It’s the art of the sale. I didn’t have anything until I convinced someone to buy it, and I’m kind of fascinated with that,” Justin reflects.
“The art is in the transaction. It’s the art of the sale. I didn’t have anything until I convinced someone to buy it, and I’m kind of fascinated with that.”
After a 13-year hiatus of curating New York City Garbage, the cubes are back with a holographic logo refresh and an accompanying set of photographed garbage stickers. At the beginning of December 2024, Justin released New York City Garbage Season 2 on Metalabel – a collection of 50 numbered, signed, and dated cubes that sold out at $100 each in under 90 minutes. Justin enthusiastically says, “It’s nice to see an idea I had 25 years ago still resonates.”
The latest season of NYC Garbage contains hand-picked trash from Times Square, Madison Square Garden, Eighth Avenue down through Chelsea, and East Village near Tompkins Spare Park. Justin explains, “It is really about finding those focal points and then finding stuff to go around it. I love anything handwritten.” About 15 years ago, he found a collection of black and white family photos from the 50s or 60s strewn all over the street near Washington Square Park. The photos included a little kid in front of a Christmas tree, a kid sitting on the wing of a plane, and a kid sitting on a horse. “Every piece of garbage played a role in someone’s life, so it’s an actual living piece of the city,” he states.
“Every piece of garbage played a role in someone’s life, so it’s an actual living piece of the city.”
Thinking forward, Justin’s lifetime career goal as an artist is to make it into the MoMA. He also wants to have a gallery show where every major neighboorhood in NYC is represented with curated cubes of New York City Garbage, so people can buy which cube they want. “New York trash definitely captures the moment of what’s going on in the city right now,” he observes. And since there was no social media when Justin originally started this project, he is so excited to see where he can take it now.
No doubt, New York City Garabge Season 3 is in the works. People want a piece of New York City, even if it is our trash.
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