Anything Goes: Contemporary Art and Materials

Shingles, doors, cardboard, glitter, newspapers, bicycle wheels, buttons, and denim are just a handful of the objects used to construct the artworks on view in Anything Goes: Contemporary Art and Materials. Taken from Telfair Museums’ permanent collection, this exhibition highlights artists across divides of geography, privilege, formal education, and access who explore unusual materials, often termed “found objects,” and their potential for creating art and meaning.

Some of the pieces on view borrow from movements set by groundbreaking works like the readymades of Marcel Duchamp and the cubist collages of Pablo Picasso. However, many of the artists, unaware or uninterested in tradition, scavenged materials and objects out of necessity, for symbolic or expressive purposes, or simply because of their curiosity in the potential of things cast off by others. These artists and artworks remind viewers of the value and artistic possibilities of the objects that surround us in our everyday lives.