Are Readymades Ready to Go?
- Connie Hope
- Jun 18
- 7 min read
Having just completed a four year joint honours in Art and the History of Art, I’ve come away with a hefty student loan, a very pleasing grade and - until now - an undiagnosed inability to absorb art works. My symptoms lead me to believe that I have artistic fatigue; a sort of apathy that is maintained, but not driven by a temporary lack of interest to engage with works, or in severe cases, the art world as a whole. And it really does seem to come out of nowhere, because with all the knowledge and opinions I have, looking at art can be hard. Talking or writing about it even harder. I suppose being overexposed to the elements, I was bound to catch something. You’ll be pleased to know that since my self diagnosis, the artists have found a cure. The readymade.
I ask myself, could the cure for my artistic apathy also be what causes it? Is the very reason I’m struggling to consume works of art also what keeps me going back to galleries for more?
What happens when an object, though familiar, performs like something you haven't seen before? These concoctions of manufactured goods alongside other seemingly unrelated items have been commonplace in art spaces for a century now. But, it seems like the readymade is having a hard resurgence, and I am unsure if this is chaotic good or chaotic bad. So in this text I’ll try to make a case for both.
The post-war period birthed DADA which ‘was more of a philosophy than an actual style’¹ It was this movement that ‘sought out a new type of art known as the readymade … a radically disruptive medium, which saw artists place manufactured objects as artworks in museums, questioning the value of artistic skill and the very essence of what art could be.’²
Fast forward to now and the debate on the validity of an existing object as art has shifted from a vibrant and absurd satirical critique to brain rot that fills galleries and your feed alike.
Zarina Muhammed from The White Pube ponders the recent proliferation of readymades and their rebrand as found objects in contemporary art practice of late. In the podcast accompanying the piece titled ‘No more found objects’ she tampers with ‘the way that found objects appear in creative artistic practices in 2025, what they’re doing in the grand scheme of things and also in this moment against the internet.’
Initially I am minded to say that found objects aren’t helping artists in keeping up appearances. Insofar as the tyranny of comment sections see famous artists and their work create palpable divides of opinions and test the limits of personal tastes. Cherry Dodd references the sort of memeification that evokes rage online in her latest article here, so go and give that a read (especially if you’ve forgotten banana tapes’ actual title.)
Remember girls, the subjectiveness of art remains a powerful force to be reckoned with. Thus, I could go through a list of recent works detailing and describing the visual appearance of artworks that seem to have fallen victim to the symptoms of artistic fatigue and say good, bad, cure, cause. But I’ll spare you. Partly because Zarina has already articulated many works of this nature in her text but also because I am not against readymades in art. Not at all. Okay well maybe sometimes…
Shuffling my opinions around in the back of my mind, like rearranging cumbersome furniture in a tiny flat is the aesthetic feng shui that's required when looking at contemporary art. It’s a real workout. And it's funny because I have been seeing a lot of home accessories and white goods in the white cube lately. So I suppose the artists are doing me a favour and I don't have to do any heavy lifting.
A recent work that I came across on a galleries’ instagram story illustrates why I am anti- found object. Because it's a perfect example of the seemingly unavoidable interconnectivity between objects in art and consumerism online. Of course, it’s nothing new that objects evoke feelings, acting as signifiers for social status and by proxy money. Sexy objects will always be desirable, but not everyone can afford them.
From what I could gather, Untitled Stack is literally a stack of commercial chairs with a £5000 coat slung over it. And right now I’m really not trying to be the guy that says, “I could have done that.” Because I literally couldn't. Balenciaga didn't commission me and I also don't have the kind of money to exhibit something like this. And I am talking here about the 13 chairs, let alone the designer coat.
You can see that by taking a few clicks on the web, the algorithm wants to make me buy, or at least think about buying. It appears that the site is unable to differentiate between art and commodity. Which is also the case with human viewers in galleries, que mantra ‘I could have done that’. Pinterest shows me similar looking items with a lack of understanding that Wermers is an artist probing the post-modern precondition pertaining to ‘high culture meet(ing) mass marketing and consumerism’ I suppose this has always been the aim of found objects in art. To poke and prod at the things that put us in positions we don't want to be in.
So, naturally the way in which found objects fill exhibition spaces reflects the time we are living in. Placed on pedestals, sprawled across matte grey floors or nailed with haphazard. It works because it's instagrammable, snappable and sellable - to some extent. We can be soothed by objects we already know because they are easy to visually consume. Art has always been observed within the context of ordinary objects. This constant comparison of assigned values is necessary for our brains to comprehend what we are seeing.
The kind of pleasure a room filled with pre existing objects, which appear to bear no correlation to each other, brings me is great. I’m a sucker for ambivalence. And this is where an indelible line is drawn between good and bad found object art. It's a grey area, but I can see it.
For example, and I’m just semising now, but say a plain old hose pipe is placed in one attractive and well kept gallery space, and in another equally attractive and well kept gallery space an object that's very similar is presented. But in the later an ultra long, ultra fluffy faux animal tail coils perfectly around it. Which one are you choosing?
The press release for Wermers sixth solo show at Hereld St describes the ‘characteristically evocative and slyly humorous bodies of work to challenge the classical – and often male-associated – vertical trajectory of sculpture.’
Here I’ll note that when I was flicking through the art history book devoid of men that I quoted earlier in the text, I found that, in the beginning, women didn’t really associate themselves with readymades.
More so, women of this time were finding ways to push the genre further. For example Sophie Taeuber-Arp was creating a synthesis of found objects and crafted works of art, combining various art styles and exploring how existing shape and form interacted with other items.
My fear is that the constant use of the found object makes it increasingly difficult to appreciate real time and labor that's put into an artistic practice if all we are seeing is stuff strategically placed in a room. What I mean to address is that the complexities of art apathy are linked to the kind of instant gratification culture that we are living in. I don't want to see true skill and dedication to material practice fall by the wayside in contemporary art.
If we are constantly shown everyday objects that we can instantly recognise, name and ultimately assign value to - where does the wonder in visiting exhibition spaces go? The awe and the mystery is squeezed out and the common place, the everyday replaces it.
The sort of political poking that DADA did doesn't have the same punch as it did 100 years ago. I'm not surprised. Especially in a world that is literally overflowing with objects, plastic crap, single use tat and enough clothes to last the next 6 generations. I wonder what happened to the labor of love that is creating something beautiful, albeit subjective.
Back in 1962 Marisol Escobar’s flat bust-like sculpture of an open mouth guzzling down a bottle of coke is an excellent example of readymade that presents in the chaotic good spectrum.
So, I’ll conclude by asserting that a synthesis of found object, material mastery and artistic licence is the elixir for art apathy, and we should all be drinking it in. I urge you to go outside, touch grass and keep looking at art.
Nicole Wermers’ Tails & Fainters is on at Herald St gallery until June 28th.
Links to read on:
Hessel, Katy. The Story of Art Without Men. Hutchinson, 2022.
¹ Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men, 157
² Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men, 157
Artsy. “Nicole Wermers - Biography, Shows, Articles & More | Artsy,” n.d. https://www.artsy.net/artist/nicole-wermers.
Herald St. “Nicole Wermers — Herald St,” n.d. https://www.heraldst.com/nicole-wermers.
The White Pube. “NO MORE FOUND OBJECTS,” n.d. https://thewhitepube.co.uk/texts/2025/found-objects/.
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