Found Objects Sculpture
• Found Object Art: comes from
the French “objet trouve.”
• Objet Trouve began in the early
1900’s with the development of
Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism.
• The term is applied to existing
objects, manufactured or
natural, used in or as works of
art often with juxtaposition.
• Some notable artists that use
Found Objects include Marcel
Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim,
Joseph Cornell, Louise
Nevelson, and Betye Saar.
What do you see ?
found and recycled objects
can be repurposed to create
a meaningful and thematic
work of art called assemblage.
'Forearmed', mixed media
Assemblage (art)
by Alfonso A. Ossorio, 1967
Assemblage
• Assemblage in art is defined as
an artistic composition made
from scraps, junk and odds and
ends such as paper, cloth,
wood, stone or metal.
• Assemblage is both the artistic
process (the act of assembling
a three-dimensional artwork
from found objects) and the
resulting artwork.
• Assemblage is the threedimensional counterpart to
two-dimensional “Collage”
•
Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon, 1959
Terms
• Juxtaposition: is used in art to
create contrasting effects of
objects or items placed next to
each other.
• Modular Structures
• Interior and Exterior Spaces
• Symbolism
• Repurpose/ Recycled Materials
• Installation
• Shrine/ Alter
• Transformation
• Related Art Movements:
Constructivism, Dada,
Surrealism
Marcel Duchamp “Ready-Mades”
• Coined the term “Readymades”
in 1915 to describe common
objects only slightly altered and
presented as art.
• Bicycle Wheel, 1913 (right) and
Fountain, 1917 are found
objects re-contextualized.
Meret Oppenheim
• Member of the Surrealist
group, her work often
addressed concerns of the
feminine using everyday found
objects rearranged.
• Object, 1936 (right) and My
Nursemaid, 1936.
Joseph Cornell “Assemblage Boxes”
• Self-taught artist known for his
boxed assemblages created
with juxtaposed found objects
and images.
• Untitled (Soap Bubble Set),
1936 (right) and Tilly Losh,
1935.
Louise Nevelson- Found Object Installations
• Created large installation
sculptures made of found wood
objects, often painted in one
solid color.
• Royal Tide I, 1960 (right), Case
with Five Balusters, from
Dawn's Wedding Feast, 1959.
Betye Saar
• Known for assemblage, the
works often depict political and
social statements referencing
African American history and
culture.
• Midnight Madonnas, 1996, and
To the Manor Born, 2011.
Neo Dada and Pop Art Movements/Artists
Pop art is now most associated with the work of New York artists of
the early 1960s such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James
Rosenquist, and Claes Oldenburg, but artists who drew on popular
imagery were part of an international phenomenon in various cities
from the mid-1950s onwards. The movement follows (the popular)
trends of the Abstract Expressionists, Pop's reintroduction of
identifiable imagery (drawn from mass media and popular culture)
was a major shift for the direction of modernism.
Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of
everyday life, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the
level of fine art. Perhaps owing to the incorporation of commercial
images, Pop art has become one of the most recognizable styles of
modern art.
• By creating paintings or sculptures of mass culture objects and
media stars, the Pop art movement aimed to blur the
boundaries between "high" art and "low" culture. The
concept that there is no hierarchy of culture and that art may
borrow from any source has been one of the most influential
characteristics of Pop art.
Pop artists seemingly embraced the post-WWII manufacturing and
media boom. Some critics have cited the Pop art choice of imagery
as an enthusiastic endorsement of the capitalist market and the
goods it circulated, while others have noted an element of cultural
critique in the Pop artists' elevation of the everyday to high art:
tying the commodity status of the goods represented to the status
of the art object itself, emphasizing art's place as, at base, a
commodity.
Gartenschlauch (Garden Hose), 1983
Steel painted with polyurethane enamel
Two parts, in an area approximately 6,000 sq. ft. (557.4 sq. m)
faucet: 35 ft. 5 in. x 8 ft. 12 in. x 7 ft. 1 in. (10.8 x 2.7 x 2.2 m)
hose: 410 ft. (125 m) long x 20 in. (0.5 m) diameter
Stühlinger Park, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
In 1979 we were asked to submit a proposal for a competition to design a sculpture for a park being
developed along with a technical high school in the university town of Freiburg-im-Breisgau on the Rhine in
western Germany.
The site had originally been an area of allotment gardens, little parcels of flowers and vegetables cultivated
by local citizens, such as those Coosje remembered from her childhood in the Netherlands. A prominent
object in such gardens is the hose for watering the plants, which seemed to Coosje a potential subject for a
sculpture. It could be seen among other things as a kind of homage or monument to the displaced gardens.
Gartenschlauch, 1983 We submitted a proposal describing the large-scale version of a hose and faucet we
envisioned, adapted to the scale and plan for the park, a baroque composition with coils on the ground and
swooping, rollercoaster-like arches of hose overhead, a sculpture that would encompass much of the space;
it was the largest work we had designed so far.
After a long discussion, the jury chose our project. According to Klaus Humpert, the city architect who would
design the park, the proposal was "at first irritating" but "a fascination with its many meanings soon
developed." Humpert set about designing a formal, symmetrical park that would accentuate the active
character of the Gartenschlauch, planting chestnut trees around the edges to serve as a background for the
sculpture.
Gartenschlauch, 1983 The "hose" we designed has a diameter of 50cm. The "faucet", 11m high,
is topped by a handle in a hard edged geometrical cross form that alludes to the insignia of the
city and echoes the plain architecture of a nearby church tower. Its vertical posture is in sharp
contrast to the circumambulating "hose" attached to it. 125 meters of tubing was required for
the "hose", which, after its coils and swoops, ends at the brink of an artificial pool. A small
amount of water flows continuously from the end of the "hose" into the pool, making the
Gartenschlauch a fountain of sorts, in a reticent way.
The only factory in Europe which could produce the tubing needed for the Gartenschlauch was
the Mannesmannröhren Werke in Mülheim, Germany, which had fabricated the gas pipe line
linking Europe and Russia. We were afraid the Gartenschlauch would be too costly to realize, but
Mannesmann agreed to produce the sculpture within the budget of the commission. An
engineer at the plant devised a special method of curving the tubes to prevent deformation -- an
invention so original that he was able to apply for a patent on the procedure. Thirty sections of
carefully formed and fitted pipe were trucked to Freiburg-im-Breisgau together with the faucet
elements. In the spring of 1983, the Gartenschlauch was assembled and painted on site in a
complex installation that lasted over a month.
• The majority of Pop artists began their careers in commercial
art: Andy Warhol was a highly successful magazine illustrator
and graphic designer; Ed Ruscha was also a graphic designer,
and James Rosenquist started his career as a billboard painter.
Their background in the commercial art world trained them in
the visual vocabulary of mass culture as well as the
techniques to seamlessly merge the realms of high art and
popular culture.
David Buckingham
What techniques did Warhol employ?
•
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) an American artist is almost certainly the most famous and
recognizable artist of the pop art movement.
•
Before joining the revolutionary movement he was a successful commercial artist in
New York where he focused his time in magazine illustration and advertising. It was
around 1949 where he began to experiment with popular consumer items like shoe
advertisements.
•
Warhol’s style consisted of highly decorative and whimsical elements that were often
coupled with a touch of comic which gave his work a more personal tone compared to
other fine art.
•
One of the first artists who adopted traditional commercial and industrial techniques
within his work, Warhol implemented silkscreen printing to create his paintings.
•
It wasn’t until the 1960s that Warhol began producing some of his most iconic works
with paintings of popular American products like Campbell soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles
and the dollar bills. His celebrity centered work featuring the likes of Marilyn Monroe,
Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando also came about.
What can we learn about Roy Lichtenstein?
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97) was another American pop artist who served to be one of the
great pioneers of the art pop movement with the likes of Warhol, Rosenquist and Johns.
His works, like Warhol’s, were iconic and instantly recognized.
Originally an abstract artist, it wasn’t until Lichtenstein met Allan Kaprow while taking up
a teaching job at Rutgers University. It was there that Lichtenstein began his journey into
the movement of pop art as he began to create free-hand paintings with comic strip
frames.
Within his work Lichtenstein created parody and commentary within these hand painted
comic strips as not only was he inspired by comics but popular culture as well.
Lichtenstein, like Warhol, adopted commercial techniques like silkscreen printing to
create his work. He, however, added a more mechanical reproduction and is most known
for his work showcasing the Ben-Day Dots printing process.
What can we learn about George Segal?
How does Segal’s Pop Art differ from the other artists we
have reviewed? How is it similar?
George Segal was born in New York on November 26, 1924, to a Jewish couple who
emigrated from Eastern Europe. His parents first settled in the Bronx where they ran a
butcher shop and later moved to a New Jersey poultry farm.
George spent many of his early years working on the poultry farm, helping his family
through difficult times. For a while, George lived with his aunt in Brooklyn so that he could
attend Stuyvesant Technical High School and prepare himself for a future in the
math/science field. It was here that George first discovered his love for art.
During World War II, he had to curtail his studies in order to help on the family poultry
farm. He later attended Pratt, Cooper Union, and finally New York University where he
furthered his art education and received a teaching degree in 1949. It was during these
years that Segal met other young artists eager to make statements based on the real world
rather than the pure abstractionism that was all the rage. He joined the 10th Street scene,
painting and concentrating on expressionist, figurative themes.
After his marriage to Helen in 1946, they bought their own chicken farm. In order to support
his family during the lean years he taught Art and English at the local high school and at Rutgers
University.
In 1957, he was included in “Artists of the New York School: Second Generation,” an exhibit at
the Jewish Museum. For the next three years he showed annually at the Hansa. The path from
painting to sculpture and the specific form of the sculpture is embodied in a series of events
from the late 1950s. In 1956, Segal was introduced to the Hansa Gallery and its’ artistic
influence. The following year, Allan Kaprow chose the Segal farm as the scene of his first
Happening – live art with an environmental sensibility. In 1958 Segal began to experiment in
sculpture and had a one-man show at the Green Gallery in 1960, featuring several plaster
figures.
In 1961, while teaching an adult education class in New Brunswick, a student brought to
George’s class a box of dry plaster bandages. Segal took them home and experimented with
applying them directly to his body. With the help of his wife, Helen, Segal was able to make
parts of a body cast and assemble them into a complete seated figure. Segal provided an
environment for his body cast by adding a chair, a window frame and a table. Man Sitting at a
Table marked the discovery of a new sculptural technique and a turning point in the artist’s
career.
What can we learn about Jasper Johns?
Why do you think his artwork inspired the work of the
Pop artists we have reviewed?
Jasper Johns was an artist that came onto the scene in the 1950s. Much of the work that he
created led the American public away from the expressionism form, and towards an art
movement or form known as the concrete. He would depict many flags and maps, and this
created a more distinct style with the work that was being done during this period in
American art history. He was also one of the leading forces to the pop form known as
minimalism; even to this day, many of the pieces that are sold at auction, bring in extremely
high price tags, and sell for record amounts.
Jasper Johns was born in Augusta, GA, and raised in Adelade, SC. From an early age, he grew
up wanting to be an artist. Before moving to New York in the early 1950s, he studied for a
brief period at the University of South Carolina. Upon moving to New York, Jasper Johns met
artists, which led him down the road of wanting to work in this career field even more. John
Cage (composer) and Merce Cunningham (choreographer), and Robert Rauschenburg
(painter), were some of the early influences he met in New York. A visit to Pennsylvania, to
view "The Large Glass" (by Marcel Dunchamp), created an intrigue in his work for Johns.
Dunchamp had changed the art world with the "readymades"( a series of found objects,
painted as finished works). His distinct work and style played a role in Jasper Johns's interest
in art, and the style he would eventually follow.
What can we learn about Robert Rauschenberg?
Robert Rauschenberg
American Collagist, Painter, and Graphic Artist
Movement: Neo-Dada
The term Neo-Dada was applied to the works of artists such as Jasper Johns,
Robert Rauschenberg, and Allan Kaprow who initiated a radical shift in the
focus of modern art during the 1950s. Neo-Dada artists are known for their
usage of mass media and found objects, as well as a penchant for
performance. These artists rebelled against the emotionally charged paintings
of the Abstract Expressionists that dominated the art world in the 1950s. By
introducing mundane subject and emphasizing performance, the Neo-Dada
artists ushered in the radical changes modern art underwent during the 1960s
and paved the way for Pop art, Minimalism, and Conceptualism.
Neo Dada
1952-1970
Robert Rauschenberg
born: 1925, Port Arthur, Texas
died: 2008, Captiva Island, Florida
Considered by many to be one of the most influential American artists due to his
radical blending of materials and methods, Robert Rauschenberg was a crucial
figure in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements. One
of the key Neo-Dada movement artists, his experimental approach expanded the
traditional boundaries of art, opening up avenues of exploration for future artists