Art which is composed from humble, worthless things and is deliberatly anti-aesthetic, as opposed to the fine art tradition with its use of traditional materials. The term was first applied by the critic Lawrence Alloway to the Combines produced in the mid-1950's by the American painter Robert Rauschenberg: these consisted of canvases to which Rauschenberg fixed rags, torn reproductions, and other waste materials. The concept of junk art is ultimately rooted in Cubist collage and was later manifest in the work of Kurt Schwitters that he produced after the First World War, much of which was made from rubbish. Junk also played a prominent role in the Environment Art and Happenings of the late 1950's and early 1960's.
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