Deaccessioning has always been an issue of much discussion and debate in the art world, but for months now, ever since the onset of the Rose Art Museum debacle in January, it’s been a hotter topic than usual. The public eye has been focused more closely on museums selling off pieces from their collections, according to guidelines from the Association of Art Museum Directors and not. One institution in the former category is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which earlier this year sold two paintings as well as more than 100 objects from its costumes and textiles collection at auction.

L.A. artist Robert Fontenot was intrigued by this, and by the general lack of artists’ voices in the debate surrounding deaccessioning. So, true to form, he decided to make an art project about it. Thus was born “Recycle LACMA,” for which Fontenot bought more than 60 costume and textile items from the auctions of LACMA material, the first of which was held at Bonhams in February. He set to work transforming them into new, more offbeat pieces with completely different uses: one item, formerly a Claire McCardell dress, has become three witch’s hats; a traditional Korean jacket has been turned into two Barbie outfits; a handwoven Turkish textile, a wastepaper basket; and a multicolored crocheted cap, a Hacky Sack. Click on the photo gallery at left for a small sampling of Fontenot’s transformations so far, all of them clever, thought-provoking, and intended to suggest ways — albeit controversial ones — in which museums can think more creatively about the pieces they want to part with.

Fontenot spoke to ARTINFO about deaccessioning, the sacredness of art objects, and the prospect of turning a Giacometti into a table lamp.

How did the idea for “Recycle LACMA” come about?

Well, I had read about the deaccessioning, and then I sort of forgot about it for a while. But searching through Bonhams’s Web site and auction catalogs, just to see what was coming up, I came upon all these LACMA items. I was surprised at how low a lot of the estimates were, and it occurred to me that I could actually buy some of these things myself. I’ve been reading so much about museum deaccessioning, and I wanted to do a project about it. Everything sort of came together.

Did you go into the auction planning to buy a certain number of items?

I was mostly going to play it by ear, but once I got there, I was shocked by how little some of the things were going for. I actually would’ve bought a lot more the first time around, but the lots I wanted were toward the end, and I wanted to make sure I had enough money. I was also surprised at how many lots didn’t sell. I ended up buying seven lots total over three auctions, and I was bid against on only two of them. On one of those, the person bid me up to $20.

How many pieces did you end up with?

I’ve forgotten the exact count, and it is a little dicey because some objects are multipart, but it’s somewhere north of 60.

Do you intend the project as a critique of the practice of deaccessioning, a celebration of it, or maybe a little of both?

It’s definitely not meant to fault LACMA. They were right in getting rid of a lot of these items — there was damage to some of them, others probably weren’t things they were ever going to show. As an artist, though, I do have some strong issues against deaccessioning. I like to think that if my work ever ends up in a museum, it’s going to stay there. In general I don’t want to condemn or celebrate, I really just want to start a dialogue. There’s a lot of talk about public trust but very little talk about the artists’ view or what they think.

On the blog for “Recycle LACMA,” you talk about the possibilities of reusing paintings and sculptures to make other, better paintings or objects. Would you really advocate, as you have written, the transformation of a Giacometti into a table lamp?

Mostly I’m just throwing the idea out there. When it comes down to it, these things started out as commodities, and once you start thinking of them again as commodities, it’s not a big stretch to start thinking of them as just parts. I myself wouldn’t want to hack up a Giacometti, but there are other artists who could probably do wonderful things with it.

But in your project you’re reusing costumes and textiles, which seem to be perceived as less sacred than, let’s say, a painting.

That would depend on who you talk to — the one group that really hates this project is the vintage clothing community. They really have taken arms against it, partially because it involves designers — Claire McCardell, James Galanos, John Anthony — whose names alone are enough to imbue the objects with a certain value. But then there is also a big assumption that because these pieces were in a museum, they’re museum quality, which these objects were not. Still, I’d be interested to see the sort of uproar if I had gotten hold of a Giacometti or a Cranach.

Are there any pieces that you bid on, brought home, and then decided you didn’t want to touch?

In my head, they’re all up for recycling. The ones I have put aside so far are the ones I don’t yet have accession numbers for. When it comes down to it, LACMA was getting rid of them. I don’t want to hold them sacred because they were once there, or because of what they are themselves.

Why have you included the accession number on each piece?

I want the objects to be sort of tattooed with these numbers, so they will always be with them — sort of their prison numbers, as it were. I want them to always be branded as things that were part of a museum collection.

Is there anything you hope LACMA will take away from the project?

I like to think of it not just as someone doing this after these objects are gotten rid of by the museum, but also as an example of what the museum itself could do with the items. Just imagine an institution where once an object has outlived its primary usefulness, it can still serve the museum in some way.

How so?

Well, there’s the idea of inviting artists to work with the objects. LACMA could have made a lot more money having artists rework pieces and then auctioning them off as a benefit. There’s that intermediate step of artists destroying objects, which would make a lot of people queasy, but once you get past that, they could have made a lot more. But also the idea that, as with someone’s home, if you have things you don’t need, you can recycle them yourself. The curators could have made clothes for kids' dolls. They could have made garment bags to help store garments.

You talk a lot on the blog about finding new uses for things, so I’m wondering what you are going to do with these recreated objects. Are you going to try to make sure they’re used, or are they just new artworks to display?

At this point I’m thinking of them as sculpture, probably because I’ve just created them. The longer I have them, the more likely I am to use them — I’ve actually already started using the wastebasket. But I meant them as examples of things that could be done, so they’re not necessarily the most practical applications for my own use. I don’t need Barbie clothes; I don’t have a Barbie collection.

Good to know! Would you ever give or sell them to someone who had a Barbie collection?

I guess if they wanted to pay enough. Ultimately, I would like to exhibit them all at LACMA, but we’ll see how it goes.