Found object

A found object (French objet trouvé) is a natural or artificial object, or fragment of one, found (and sometimes bought) by an artist and kept because of some intrinsic interest the artist sees in it. The key idea is that an ordinary, often utilitarian object is removed from its everyday context and turned into a work of art, or part of one, by the very act of artistic choice, with almost no physical intervention by the author. The concept of the found object revolutionised twentieth-century art through Marcel Duchamp, who in the early 1910s introduced the "ready-made" — mass-produced industrial goods, such as a bicycle wheel or the notorious urinal Fountain (1917), elevated to the status of art. In doing so Duchamp questioned the traditional notion of craftsmanship, authorship and the uniqueness of the art object. The idea was actively developed by the Dadaists and Surrealists: Pablo Picasso combined found things in assemblages, while the Surrealists valued chance finds for their poetic and subconscious power. Later the found object became the basis of assemblage, Pop art and conceptual art. This concept fundamentally changed the boundaries of art, emphasising that what is decisive is not the making but the choice and context themselves.