Found art

Found art, more commonly and less confusingly, 'Found Object' (French: objet trouvé) is a term used to describe art created from common objects not normally considered to be artistic (also assemblage). The idea behind found art is that the piece of art derives its significance from the context into which it is put. Found art blurs the traditional lines of what art is and questions the very nature of art itself. Marcel Duchamp's "readymades" are some famous and the earliest examples of found art: for one piece, Fountain, he signed a urinal with the pseudonym "R. Mutt" and mounted it face up. Another piece, Bottle Rack, is simply that: a bottle rack signed by Duchamp. Picasso's Baboon and Young is a good example of a found object being used to create the basis of a larger piece of work. Many contemporary artists have used found objects in their art work including Arman, Joseph Cornell, Tony Cragg, Mark Divo, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, David Mach, Cornelia Parker, Giuseppe Penone, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Daniel Spoerri, Kurt Schwitters, Composers have often used found sound in compositions, examples including John Cage and Nicolas Collins. Poets, too, create art out of non-literary writing; Cordelia McGuire turned a funeral home's want ad into a poem entitled Embalmer just by adding line breaks. See: List of found art See also: Pop art, Modernism