Art Without Artists

Art Without Artists catalog.

September 27 marks the opening of the exhibition Art Without Artists at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at North Carolina State University. Co-curated by Accidental Mysteries creator John Foster and Gregg Museum Director Roger Manley the exhibit showcases over 100 objects from my John Foster’s personal collection and scores more from private collections across the country.

The exhibit includes extraordinary objects never intended to be art, most of them made for utilitarian reasons. Foster and Manley selected objects for their ability to make a broad leap from their original function or purpose — to transform into something entirely different to our eyes today. Among the pieces on view: 19th-century firefighting respirator masks, handmade game boards, signage, scientific devices, anonymous snapshots, quilts, and natural objects such as minerals and rocks.

This ability to recontextualize objects today has been helped along by generations of artists, from Pablo Picasso and Jean Dubuffet to Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, John Chamberlain, and so many more.

Art Without Artists will be on exhibit through December 16, 2012, in Raleigh, N.C.

Spread from the Art Without Artists catalog.

Spread from the Art Without Artists catalog.