New materialism: from instrument to sculpture

The subject, object, thing in the history of art appears already in early modernism: Larionov nailed to the wall the cut braid of Goncharova and hatbox, Duchamp put a urinal as a fountain and bottles dryer, Picasso made a bull’s head from the saddle and steering of the bike. In the late modernism — Sidur or Paradzhanov — sculptures and installations are assembled from ready-made objects. Italian artists of the “Arte Povera” and the French  – César and Arman — work with the “broken” things: rags, broken machines and musical instruments. Russian conceptualists reveal the meaning of individual items, coming up with witty work-sandwiches: a book on skates or a branch in rolls of the Scotch tape.