One Man’s Trash…

Artists find meaning in found objects in AMSET exhibition

­If an artist creates a thing, it must necessarily be art. A painting is not the paint on the surface, but the action of the artist’s hand. But what if the medium is not conventionally artistic? Is it lesser art because it doesn’t incorporate conventional material?

Not according to author Robert Craig Bunch. He is the guest curator of “The Art of Found Objects: Enigma Variations,” on display at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas through March 3, which features artists who use various non-conventional objects to create art that challenges and engages the viewer.

Bunch chose the work of five artists — Austin’s Steve Brudniak, San Antonio’s Marilyn Lanfear, Houston’s Angelica Paez, Lytle’s Ward Sanders and Kelly Sears of Boulder, Colorado — to anchor the exhibition. The quintet each have multiple images in the show. Works by Texas artists Charles A. A. Dellschau, Forrest Bess, Felix “Fox” Harris, Jesse Lott, David McManaway, Maudee Carron, Clyde Connell, Bert Long, Mary McCleary, Dario Robleto, Vernon Fisher, Trenton Doyle Hancock and Jonathan Rosenstein complete the exhibit.

Lanfear’s “Faces” contains not only found objects, but is also a found composition. Bunch said that when he saw the collection of heads on a dresser at Lanfear’s house, he asked her if the composition was deliberate. Does it really matter? The artist thinks of things in an artistic way, so how the artifacts are arranged is necessarily artistic. The faces — a collection of carved wooden mannequin heads — each have their own personality. Bunch was drawn to the particular arrangement, and it has been featured in several exhibitions since.

The San Antonio artist draws on her family history in her work. “Mother’s Chair” is an illusion of a found object. Reminiscent of a depression era comfy chair, it is, in fact, made out of paper, hand made by the artist. The found object, a 1934 half dollar coin which is inserted underneath the chair’s “cushion,” is hidden. This is just the latest of several coins which the artist has acknowledged sometimes go missing.

This pieces stretch the concept of “found.” It may be that the armature is found, as is the base and the missing brass plaque, but even if it was just the coin, the concept is sound. Similarly, the wedding dress in “Pedestal and Bride (M for Michele)” is constructed out of paper, suspended above a found ornate pedestal. Lanfear’s work is autobiographical, so one could argue that the true art object is the memory which inspired the creation.

Another excellent Lanfear piece is “Bathing Suit for Opal’s Annual Trip to Santa Barbara,” which features the eponymous suit folded neatly in a wicker valise. However, the suit is a deception as it is actually carved out of limestone. Who is Opal? And what will she do when she wants to go swimming?

Paez is represented by a series of 10 magazine cutout collages that harken to the Surrealists. The images range from the beautiful to the strange. “Veronica Lake Surfing” features what looks like a studio still of the actress with a surfer riding through her cascading flowing hair. “Step Up” is Dali-esque, with a beautiful woman posed in a darkened forest, but her dress is a staircase inviting one to climb to who knows where.

Paez also gives us more conventionally surreal images. “Cut in Half” features an interior with two frames on the wall, each with half a woman’s face. In the foreground, on a table, is a large circular saw blade. “Under the Knife” gives us a simple loaf of bread sliced, but with a woman’s face split between two pieces. “Eyes Tied Shut” combines two images with one seemingly tying the eyes shut of the other. The combination of figures challenges the reader to make sense of the juxtaposed images, and it is quite disturbing.

This is the first time Paez’s work has been featured in an exhibition although she has been published in collage anthologies and shows her work through her website.

Jesse Lott’s “Collage Man” offers a nice counterpoint to Paez in its use of collage, perhaps leading more toward the style of the Russian avant-garde than the Surrealists.

Dave McManaway’s “Jomo Board #3: Toni’s Cross” resembles a Victorian shadow box with multiple sections each filled with random artifacts, both from the natural world and manufactured. A dessicated stick sits adjacent to Mickey Mouse. Is there a hidden narrative for us to decipher, or do the disparate representational pieces combine to create a non-representational abstraction? Conversely, Mary McCleary’s “I Fled Him Down the Days and Down the Nights,” from AMSET’s permanent collection, assembles random detritus to create a highly representational image. Buttons, pencils, beads, gum wrappers and other objects — which examined closely represent nothing — combine to represent a thick, impasto painting that is vibrant and alive.

Brudniak and Sanders joined Bunch at the reception, Dec. 14, and discussed their work.

Brudniak has been making assemblages for close to 40 years and said a lot of his work involves science elements. “I’m at the point in my philosophy that I don’t want to tell much of a story about the work any more,” he said. “I want to leave the viewer to be enticed by the work visually. I don’t want people to be directed in any way.”

Brudniak said he works to make the piece look like a homogenous unit, not a collection of pieces, and he doesn’t want the viewer to notice the discrete found objects. One of his pieces, “The Menagerie of Eternal Life,” incorporates salt crystals that contain bacteria that is 250 million years old. Brudniak said he persuaded the scientist who discovered it to send him a sample. It is reminiscent of a mausoleum plate, this containing the remains of the very origins of life. Another piece has items that have been to the space station. Brudniak’s work is meticulously planned out. He said he makes one or two pieces a year.

By contrast, Sanders said he surrounds himself with objects — “You have to have a lot of things to choose from” — and allows them to lead his creativity. “A few found objects can lead to a found idea, that you come up with something you hadn’t even thought about,” he said.

Sanders said he tends to build the outsides and fills the insides with found objects. The titles are important and can lead the work. “Language for Miscreants” began when a friend brought an unusual dried coconut and said, “Do something with that.” Sanders said he got to thinking about language and how the word we call something is not the object. As part of the construction, he cut up a dictionary and let words “drip” down through a funnel.

Where Brudniak incorporates electricity, Sanders said he loves the objects of science that are metaphorical of other ideas. In “Remains of Despair,” Sanders took a discarded rope hammock and cut it up. At the same time he was thinking of Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa” and incorporated a reproduction of the painting. “Something can start out as a piece of trash and end up as something else — that’s the joy,” he said.

What makes the exhibition so interesting is the multiplicity of expression. There is even a short film comprising found photographs. As these objects get a second life — or third or fourth — they are elevated from detritus to art.

“The Art of Found Objects: Enigma Variations” is on display through March 3 at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 500 Main St. in downtown Beaumont.

The museum will host its “Taste of the Arts Lecture Series,” 12:30 p.m. Feb. 11, with Dennis Kiel, director of Lamar University’s Dishman Art Museum, who will give a talk on “The Art of Found Objects: Enigma Variations.” The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the galleries with lunch to follow in the Two Magnolias café, Dutch treat style.

Copies of Bunch’s book, “The Art of Found Objects: Interviews with Texas Artists,” are available in the museum’s shop.

For more information, visit www.amset.org.

Story and photos by Andy Coughlan, ISSUE editor