Found object

A found object (objet trouvé) is an ordinary thing - manufactured, natural, or discarded - taken up by an artist and presented as art. The idea is usually traced to the Cubist collages of 1912 and above all to Marcel Duchamp's readymades: a bottle rack, a urinal signed "R. Mutt" (Fountain, 1917) that relocated art from making to choosing. Dada and Surrealism embraced the strategy - Kurt Schwitters built entire environments from bus tickets and scraps - and it fed Pop art, assemblage and installation through the century. Because the artist's selection, title and context do the creative work, the found object poses enduring questions about authorship, originality and what art is. From Duchamp's assisted readymades to Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes and contemporary installation, it remains one of modern art's core techniques.

Defining characteristics

• Everyday, mass-made or discarded objects presented as art
• Selection and context replace traditional fabrication and craft
• Objects used unaltered or minimally altered ('assisted readymade')
• Assemblage, collage and shadow-box construction from found material
• Title, signature and gallery frame transform the object's meaning
• Anti-authorship stance: the choice, not the hand, is the creative act

Key figures

• Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) — Invented the readymade: manufactured objects nominated as art
• Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) — Pioneered collage with found materials from 1912
• Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) — Built Merz collages and environments from urban debris
• Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) — Made poetic shadow boxes from found objects and images

Example works

• Fountain — Marcel Duchamp (1917)
• Bottle Rack — Marcel Duchamp (1914)
• Still Life with Chair Caning — Pablo Picasso (1912)

Sources

• Found object - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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