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Anthony Cragg’s work Self-portrait with Bottles and Bricks consists of a number of found plastic objects that have been meticulously assembled into a figurative form, that of a human shown in profile. The work is life-sized and is fixed to the wall. Above its head hang a number of objects including empty bottles, bricks and boomerangs. The work dates from 1982, a time when Cragg was mainly using recycled objects. He collects items discarded by the consumer society and combines them in structures, thereby giving them a new identity. Their combination gives rise to a new form, a new image, to which the various objects add their own meaning. The title refers to the self-portrait genre, but here it is not intended to be seen as a portrait of an individual as in traditional painting. It should be seen rather as an area of research in which man relates to his surroundings and the objects he finds there. This human figure is filled with plastic objects and is encircled by miscellaneous products of the consumer society: he is literally defined by and situated in relation to these sort of object.