Definition and Examples
A found object is a natural or man-made object, or fragment of an object, that is found (or sometimes bought) by an artist and kept because of some intrinsic interest the artist sees in it. Found objects (sometimes referred to by the French term for found object ‘objet trouvé’) may be put on a shelf and treated as works of art in themselves, as well as providing inspiration for the artist. The sculptor Henry Moore for example collected bones and flints which he seems to have treated as natural sculptures as well as sources for his own work. Found objects may also be modified by the artist and presented as art, either more or less intact as in the dada and surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, or as part of an assemblage.
Picasso was an early innovator of found object art. From 1912 he began to incorporate newspapers and such things as matchboxes into his cubist collages, and to make his cubist constructions from various scavenged materials.
Extensive use of found objects was made by dada, surrealist and pop artists, and by later artists such as Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Michael Landy among many others.
Source
Featured Artist: Betye Saar
Betye Saar is an American artist known for assemblage and collage works. Using a found-object process, Saar explores both the realities of African-American oppression and the mysticism of symbols through the combination of everyday objects. “I'm the kind of person who recycles materials but I also recycle emotions and feelings,” the artist has explained. “And I had a great deal of anger about the segregation and the racism in this country.” Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, and her work tackles racism through the appropriation and recontextualization of African-American folklore and icons, as seen in the seminal The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), a wooden box containing a doll of a stereotypical “mammy” figure. Born on July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, CA, she studied at the University of California Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. Today, her works are held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others. Saar lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
