Image: Cadeau by Man Ray, bronze iron, brown patina, and metal tacks, 6 1/8 x 3 5/8 x 4 1/2”, 1958 (replica of 1921 original), MoMA, NY.
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1997/images/Ray.gif

September 1 - 29, 2007

Opening reception Friday, September 1 from 5 - 7 pm.  

Beauty is well understood to be in the eyes of the beholder, likewise is art. The reality is there is beauty in a broken cup, delicacy in a rusty nail, and grace in a tarnished spoon, though it may take a certain pair of eyes to see this potential.

The Mainstay Gallery committee invites you to challenge your conventional notions of art and join a number of artists working in the medium of the mundane and misunderstood in the September exhibit Re-Find: Found and Readymade Art.

Responding to the age-old question of what is art, Marcel Duchamp’s early twentieth-century found object works reassign meaning to commonplace and cast-off objects through reinterpretation and modification. Other modern artists soon followed suit to create an entirely new genre of art dignifying the banal.

Local artists such as Phoebe Newman, Halli Kenoyer, Diane Palmer, Deb Turnbull, Rich Stage, Charlotte Tanner, Mary Ida Henrikson and David Dixon have been stretching the designation of the object as art for years. Diane Palmer, who has been working closely with the Mainstay Gallery Committee on the exhibit, had this to say on why she makes found art. “There’s something about old things...they have character and history. I’m attracted to old things and giving them a new life. Also, I’m a big collector, and when you collect, it’s only a matter of time before you want to create something from what you collect. I also like the personal connection people find in a found object piece - everyone has different memories and experiences associated with a familiar object – a piece can tell your history.”

Click here to download the Re-Find call to artists.

Click here to download the Re-Find artist registration form.