2018.31.2
Composition Trouvee
Artist
Guillaume Bijl
(Antwerp, Belgium, 3/19/1946 - )
Title
Composition Trouvee
Creation Date
1990
Century
late 20th century
Dimensions
91 x 143 x 47 1/2 in. (231.14 x 363.22 x 120.65 cm)
Classification
Sculpture
Creation Place
Europe, Belgium
Medium and Support
multiple parts in mixed media
Credit Line
Gift of The Foundation, To-Life, Inc.
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
2018.31.2
This large-scale assemblage of found objects is the first work of installation art to enter the Museum’s collection. Since Marcel Duchamp anonymously submitted a signed urinal to the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 and titled it Fountain, artists have gleefully decontextualized everyday items and inserted them into exhibitions and art discourses. Bijl selected a range of objects from Europe and the United States for this work that has the appearance of a junk shop window display. Referencing the past as well as past notions of the future, at a time when the crumbling of the Eastern Bloc gave rise to the idea of the End of History (Francis Fukuyama), he envisions and illustrates the “archeology” of contemporary society. With Lazy Hardware (1945), Marcel Duchamp had already presented an installation as a window display in Gotham Bookmart, New York, to advertise the publication of André Breton’s book, Arcane 17.