Lost + Found
Lost and Found is an international show of found art and poetry from performance to collage to collaborations with cats. Participating artists are: Ange Altenhofen, Jim White, Jennifer Knox, Larassa Kabel, Stephanie Brunia, Benjamin Dodds, The Belle Morte Collective, Midwest Pressed and Rachel Merrill. February 25, 2022 - March 31, 2022.
"I crave magic. No, not the card trick kind of magic, but the event that rouses wonder and amazement. The kind of experience that brings surprise and joy and perhaps a bit of transcendence, when memories are stirred by something felt or desired This kind of trick can come in many forms. Artists across the ages have used this magical process for a myriad of reasons. Upper Paleolithic artists discovered sites that suited their visions and transformed a found rock outcropping into a raging auroch, or an opening in a cave wall was selected and changed into a female form for what we believe to be ritual reasons. Although their meanings are unknown to us, these encounters probably held magic for their creators, as they do for us now. Closer to our time, Pablo Picasso miraculously transformed a found bicycle seat and handlebars into the head of a bull, and Marcel Duchamp more cerebrally produced the same alchemy turning a urinal and bottle rack into readymade art objects. (Or was it Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.) Yet other things can also be found, removed from their environment, and transformed into something new, for instance ideas, words, and phrases, or even a rhythm or a combination of musical notes. REM’s Michael Stipe found the term “losing my religion” in the Southern vernacular and created a song with this as its title. The original phrase meant an individual was acting badly as if he or she had lost the foundation for behaving appropriately. Stipe transformed the term into something new and gave it another meaning. In each example, something was taken out of its initial condition and placed into another one, and its meaning changed, just like the things here. If we look, magic is there in front of us."
-Jeff Fleming, Director of Des Moines Art Center, artist
-Jeff Fleming, Director of Des Moines Art Center, artist
"There is an oft-used quote by sculptor Lew Alquist I’ve used several times in talking about contemporary art - “Not everything is art, but everything is art supplies.” In my two decades in the art world, I’ve come to believe this not only applies to physical materials, but the unique combination of memories, opinions, and neural pathways that make up one’s viewpoint of the world around them. Each of us has a superpower to see things not everyone else can. It might start with a thrift-store painting. It’s ugly, your partner hates it, but there’s just something about it you can’t let go. Maybe there’s a tree you pass everyday on your way to work - it just seems more perfect than any other tree no matter what the season...but you can’t explain why. Ask me about the hidden genius of micro-budget late 1970-early 1980s slasher movies (or don’t as I’d like to retain some professional integrity). My joking aside there is a tell - we are conditioned to discount unsanctioned beauty, and we shouldn’t. If art is good for anything, it is to help us find meaning in a world that often makes little sense. The ability to take visual pleasure in the crooked, shabby, trashy, and just plain unexplainable is a trait we should not only embrace but foster in ourselves and others. To end with another quote, I’ll suggest we follow Madonna - a master of bringing the unexpected into the spotlight. “Beauty’s where you find it.”
-Laura Burkhalter, curator Des Moines Art Center
-Laura Burkhalter, curator Des Moines Art Center
UPDATE: Lost and Found has traveled to two bathrooms so far: Cup o' Joe Coffee in Cedar Falls, IA and Eleven Cherry Salon in Des Moines, IA.
UPDATE: Lost and Found has traveled to two bathrooms so far: Cup o' Joe Coffee in Cedar Falls, IA and Eleven Cherry Salon in Des Moines, IA.