No Mere Things: Found Objects as Medium in South African Art

Artists have incorporated objects from everyday life into their artworks for more than a century. Since the historical avant-garde artists’ experiments with assemblage, such items are referred to as found objects. Modernist discourses characterised the use of found objects as a means to critique long-held conventions of the institutions and practices of art. However, found objects are now accepted as part of global artists’ tool kits, unlike when they were used in the early twentieth century. Referring to artworks exhibited on an exhibition titled “Beyond the Readymade” in 2018, this article explores how modern and contemporary South African artists use found objects, in order to move beyond an understanding of such objects as the anti-art gestures of the historical and neo-avant-gardes. By considering what meanings found objects bring into selected artworks, the article demonstrates that a shift in focus, from ontologies of art to the meaning of objects, enables alternative understandings of artworks. The article concludes that found objects can be thought of as a medium, like paint or ink, through which artists make comment about the world outside the field of art.