Over, Under, Next

Venus of the Rags - Michaelangelo Pistoletto

Before 1913, when artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque first incorporated commonplace, mass-produced images and found objects into their art, everyday materials were regarded as simple bric-a-brac, not items to use in creative works.

Since then, artists around the world have embraced the idea that art could be scavenged from fragments and detritus found in the everyday world. 

Recently, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gallery on the National Mall, an exhibition entitled Over, Under, Next, which featured more than 100 examples of collage and assemblage primarily drawn from the Hirshhorn’s collection, was on display.  The exhibition closed last Monday.

Among the materials found in the art were butterfly wings, glass shards, doll parts, crumpled automotive metal, jigsaw puzzle pieces, clothing, straight pins, furniture, sand, and brightly colored pill capsules.

Here is a sample of the art you would have found, some of which is still on display in permanent exhibits at the museum. 

This is a closeup of the objects ....

... that produced Monsters of Paradise, Times Two by Fred Tomasello

The Easter Bunny as art from handbags

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
The Over Under Next exhibit may be gone, but you can view the next major exhibit headed to the Hirschhorn. That exhibition which will open on Oct.24  is entitled Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950 and is the first in-depth exploration of the theme of destruction in international contemporary visual culture. The display will begin in the aftermath of World War II, under the looming fear of total annihilation in the atomic age, and will explore the continuing use that artists have made of destruction as part of the creative process—sometimes sinister, sometimes playful, often iconoclastic, and always challenging.