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Introduction

Everyday Things

Contemporary Works from the Collection
April 13, 2012 - February 24, 2013

Before the 20th century, the use of everyday objects in Western art was most often associated with the genre of still-life painting, where natural and manmade items were depicted for their symbolic meanings and as evidence of an artist's virtuosity. In the early 20th century Marcel Duchamp challenged traditional meanings and methods of making of art by boldly selecting commonplace objects—a bicycle wheel, a bottle rack, and a urinal, for example—and designating them as art. These "readymade" objects became subject matter and substance for three-dimensional assemblages and sculpture that redefined both aesthetic experience and evidence of an artist's craft.

Everyday Things brings together works from the collection made from the 1960s to the present, including a number that are being exhibited here for the first time. Some realistically depict ordinary domestic objects (a paper bag, a garden hose, supermarket produce), while others accumulate quantities of found materials (plastic Coke bottles, rubber flip-flop sandals, audiotape) or serve as functional forms in their own right (light fixtures and furniture). Several artists transform existing materials to become components of other everyday things—such as wall sconces made with portable coolers and colorful benches composed of handrails.

Many of these artworks reflect current societal themes, addressing issues from waste and recycling to domesticity in relation to industrial production to the impact of functional objects' design on daily life. Whether featuring traditional or non-traditional materials, they heighten our awareness of how everyday things—from the banal to the transformative—characterize our world.

Selected Objects

Don Eddy

Peaches, Tomatoes, Watermelons (Supermarket Window I), 1972

Mike Kelley

Untitled (Bowling Ball, Bag and Shirt), 1991

Pepón Osorio

T.K.O., 1989

Kenn Speiser

Zipper Box, 1997

Dan Flavin

Untitled, ca. 1970

Robert Watts

Ham & Egg Sandwich, 1965

Carrie Mae Weems

Commemoration Plate, 1992

Dave Cole

American Flag (Toy Soldiers #12), August 2002
No Image Available

Ree Morton

Untitled (Signs of Love), 1976

Tony Capellán

Mar Caribe [Carribean Sea], 1996

B. Wurtz

Untitled, 1989

Tania Bruguera

Study for Poetic Justice, 2003

Christian Marclay

Cascade, 1989

Jack Beal

Shopping Bag, 1969

John Baeder

Charlie's Diner, 1975

Jeff Koons

Balloon Dog (Red), 1995

Jeff Koons

Bread With Egg, 1995

Pruitt-Early

Paintings for Teenage Boys, Miller Six Pack, (What's on a Man's Mind), 1989

Pruitt-Early

Sculpture for Teenage Boys (Miller Six Pack), ca.1989

Ai Weiwei

Kui Hua Zi (Sun Flower Seeds), 2009

Leidy Churchman

Cart in Theory, 2008

Kevin Osmond

Constellation #4, 2009

Jim Drain

Untitled (bench), 2010

Stella Waitzkin

Untitled, n. d.

Ann P. Smith

Whale, 2010

Michael Owen

Don't Tread on Me, 2011

Franz West

Privatlampe des Künstlers II, 1989

Tony Feher

A Few Blue Spots, 2001
No Image Available

Richard Wentworth

Third Hand, 1986

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Everyday Things : Contemporary Works from the Collection

April 13, 2012 - February 24, 2013
View Checklist PDF

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