Objects and characters

Constructing a character with objects

Using personal objects in art means the construction of a character in its most intimate ways. Even if the personal objects belong to the artist, there is a construction of the character of the artist; the projection of his/her persona in specific contexts. For example, Hale Tenger’s large scale installation Sandık Odası (1997) turns the exhibition space into the inside of a home, partly based on a past home of hers. It carries the context of 80s Turkey, its political and cultural environment into a personal space. Each object points towards a certain feeling, and is powered by the artist’s memories and curation. The personal objects and memories suggest the collective memory of a culture.

Hale Tenger, Sandık Odası, 1997

Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away (1996) is another example of character constructing through objects. As the title of the work strongly suggests, Kabakov’s imaginary character holds on to every item he owns, in the effort to hold on to every memory. The objects connect to each other to form a meaningful whole, an archive of a life. Each object is carefully documented with a little note next to it; enhancing the idea that this is indeed an archive. In contrast to Tenger’s Sandık Odası, the space is organized almost like a museum, with displays and explanatory captions. The title of the work suggests the act of hoarding, but the display and organization contradicts this premise. The viewer is forced to assume that each object, however mundane, carries a meaning.

Ilya Kabakov, The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away, 1996

In Liu Chuang’s Buying Everything On You (2006-present), it is the viewer that constructs, or imagines the character. Chuang offers money to strangers on the street in exchange for everything they have on them at that moment. The result is a display of neatly arranged items on a white surface: wallets, clothes, underwear, phones, keys, receits, shoes, etc. Like Kabakov’s objects, Chuang’s displays are also too neat, like they have been recovered from a crime scene and layed out on the table for registration and examination. The eerie display of these objects enhances the viewer’s urge to ‘investigate’ this absent owner and imagine a character based on the evidence.

Liu Chuang, Buying Everything On You, 2006-present

Collecting

Curating objects: artist as collector

This part will be based on the analogy that the artwork in itself is a curation. Whether it is an installation, a painting, a video, or presented in any other medium, the artwork is a merging of separate, usually juxtaposed parts. Therefore, with each artwork, the artist collects and curates. The artwork is a micro collection in itself. These ‘collected’ parts are abstract; as in they are ideas, or fragments of ideas. However they present themselves as images, depictions or found objects. Artists, especially those working with found objects are fervent collectors.

Collecting personal objects

Objects acquire personal meaning arbitrarily and over time. Not everything monetarily valuable or aesthetic turns into an object of personal meaning. On the contrary, these kinds of objects are harder to become personal because of their inaccessibility. Their collectively accepted value puts them on a figurative pedestal. The monetary value cannot be disregarded and affects the personal and emotional value that the object may hold. For example, generally speaking, a family heirloom china set is not something you use all the time, or take out of its display case often to look at or hold in your hand. The most simple items can have more personal connections with their owner; simply because they are more involved in the daily life of a person and because they are only important to that one person in a unique way.

The artist may also collect personal objects for a fictive character, in which case the collecting is a conscious act; but still contains a personal approach. The fictive character is imagined by the artist to its smallest, most mundane details. Collecting for a fictive narrative is based on intuition but also requires informed choices. The objects need to be plausible as personal souvenirs. If the artwork has multiple found objects, they need to be coherent within themselves and the narrative. Orhan Pamuk’s museum, the Museum of Innocence, is a successful example of this curation of found personal objects. Each display case is an artwork, meticulously curated under a theme. As a whole, each display case is also consistent with each other, linked with a timeline. The objects are collected from thrift stores and were once the personal items of many different people, but together they tell the story of one individual.

Museum of Innocence

Collecting for inspiration

Found objects are not only significant once incorporated into artwork; but also as sources of inspiration for the artist. The objects the artist is surrounded by or exposed to are just as decisive in the creation process as the books he/she reads or events that happen around him/her. An exhibition at the Barbican Gallery during February-May 2015 entitled Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector was dedicated precisely to this interaction between the artist and the object. The personal collections of 14 artists including Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst were displayed in separate installations. For the viewer, this is an extremely insightful experience because these collected objects are almost always directly or indirectly responsible for the shaping of the artwork. These installations of the artists’ collections are reminiscent of curiosity cabinets in their eccentricity and seemingly random connections.

Hanne Darboven's collection, courtesy the Barbican, photo by Rainer Bollinger

Personal objects

Personal found objects in art

The employment of personal objects in artwork has a very powerful effect. There is something very alluring about looking at someone’s personal items. The objects become their owner, anonymous or identified, and act as an extension of the owner that connects the viewer to him/her in a very intimate manner. The viewer’s interest in observing these objects may be motivated by voyeurism, empathy, admiration, curiosity and possession. The absence of the actual person makes the objects even more powerful and somehow sentimental. Even if the objects are those of a fictitious individual, serving as parts of a narrative imagined by the artist, the illusion may still be as powerful as reality.

Using found personal objects with biographical narrative in art is more of a contemporary notion. Found objects have made their way into artwork during modern art, with the avant-garde. But the focus has been on taking high-art down from its pedestal, questioning the borders of what art can be, usually using objects of mass-production without uniqueness or personal connotations. Even in post-modern movements such as Pop art, most objects used are dull commercial objects, having cultural and social implications rather than personal. (Although now they may be viewed more as nostalgic items, romanticised and personalised based on their time period.)

The depiction of objects in art

The depiction of personal objects in art has been mostly allegorical. As far back as the Renaissance, where the notion of individuation of the artist was firmly established, objects, landscapes, even figures were symbolic; usually of virtues, cultural values, phenomena and disciplines. The objects in nature morte paintings did not have owners or personal contexts.

As one of the artists having major influence on modern art, Van Gogh is a game changer in his depiction of objects. He differs from his contemporaries in his ability to depict objects as portraits. For example, the painting of his room can be regarded as an auto-portrait. Each object is an extension of himself and the viewer sees reflections of the owner. The objects are merely the artist’s things; for the viewer they are not symbols of anything other than the artist’s persona. The artist presents these objects to the viewer; they can be part of an intentional façade or be fictive, yet still they tell an intimate narrative. In this sense, Van Gogh is the first major artist to use objects in painting in the personal manner some artists much later on have employed found objects in contemporary art. About two decades later than Van Gogh, some of post-impressionist Marius Borgeaud’s paintings also depict figureless compositions of used objects; reminiscent of Van Gogh’s intimate approach. These paintings connect the objects with their owners/users, with the way they seem to have just been used a moment ago, echoing the presence of figures now gone. Reminiscent of Hopper's interiors, these paintings are less expressive than Van Gogh's, but similar in their manner of the personification of objects.

Van Gogh, Bedroom in Arles, 1888

 Marius Borgeaud, Table With Two Bowls and Bread, 1922

Unusual objects

Up until the late 19^th century, there seems to have been a separation between objects worth depicting in or integrating into artwork and objects that are viewed as trash, vile and unaesthetic. These ‘unusual’ objects can be bodily things such as hair or teeth, or a piece of used tissue paper, a tooth brush, etc. Francis Bacon was one of the first to break this dogma; with his depiction of meat at the butcher’s shop. Around the same time, Frida Kahlo also depicted things that may be counterintuitive to define as objects; such as a broken pelvic bone, or a withered orchid flower. Kahlo's work is known for its personal and autobiographical connotations; and these objects are extensions of her body, depicted literally as being tethered to her belly by cords. 

Objects do not need to be poetic and beautiful to acquire meaning. On the contrary, the most mundane objects can sometimes hold great sentimental and personal value. An object can be important just because it was touched or owned by a loved one; and kept like a souvenir.

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