Assemblage Art: Unlimited Possibilities
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Assemblage art is: a three-dimensional artistic composition is made from putting together found objects. These
found objects can be every conceivable kind of material – natural, manufactured or everyday; objects or fragments. So
many possibilities! The objects initial purpose in this world is not to be used as an art material. Assemblage artist often find
the flat surface of a canvas too confining.
A bit of history on Assemblage Art:
Stage One: Found Art (aka. Readymade or Found Object)
Found Art describes art created from the undisguised, but often modified, use of objects that
are not normally considered art.
 Found art receives significance as because the artist places significance on it - the artist calls it art,
therefore, it is art! It is important the artist reinforces the importance of the object as art with a title.
 Why did they do this? They wanted to dignify commonplace objects in this way. It was not for shock
value, this found art was used as a way to challenge the definition of what was considered art.
 Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel, 1913 – Duchamp coined the term the readymade in to describe his
found art.
 Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, 1917 – a urinal which he signed with the
pseudonym “R. Mutt” which shocked the art world.
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Stage Two: Assemblage Art
What is the difference between found art and assemblage art?
Assemblage Art is the combination of Several Found objects.
Marcel Duchamp’s Why Not Sneeze Rose Selavy? - small birdcage
containing a thermometer, cuttlebone, and 151 marble cubes resembling
sugar cubes.
Louise Nevelson’s Black Chord, 1964 - unhappy with external reality, she
started constructing separate realities out of found pieces of wood.
Rauschenberg’s Odalisk, 1955-58 – a box covered with pasted images,
comic strips, photos, clippings from magazines, held together by a few
brush strokes of paint. The box perches on a foot which is anchored to
a pillow, and a stuffed chicken sits on top of the box.
Joseph Beuys’ Fat Chair - a Fluxist artist who modified found objects,
such as rocks with a hole in them, stuffed with fur and fat, a van with
sledges behind it and a rusty girder.
Cornell’s Hotel Eden – box filled with different items
Stage Three: Commodity Sculpture
Started in the 1980s as a variation of Assemblage Art
where commercially mass produced items would be
arranged in a sculpture.
Jeff Koons’ Two Ball 50/50 Tank, 1985 – two basket balls
floating in water, which half fills a glass tank
Haim Steinbach, ultra red #2, 1986. Wood, plastic laminates,
lava lamps, enamel pots, and digital clocks
Contemporary Assemblages
Numerous contemporary artists have continued to
explore Assemblage Art, because it has unlimited
possibilities, especially in junk-ridden America!
Tracy Emin - displayed her own unmade bed with
sweat-stained sheets, surrounded by items such as
her slippers, stained underwear and drink bottles.
Sarah Lucas - a mattress with two melons, a
bucket and a cucumber, representing female and
male genitalia.