Found Art Gallery + Tour

The practice of finding beauty (and humor) in the mundane is a skill many artists have and hone. This recipe invites us all to build up a practice of awareness and gratitude by turning everyday landscapes into art galleries.

Serves: 2-8. If you have a larger group, you can break into smaller tour groups

Time: 60-90 minutes

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Ingredients

• 3-5 index cards per person

• pens

• imagination (always)

• your home and the willingness to let others explore it's nooks and crannies

How To

The Mover's Lament, 1910. Wood, wires, nail, sound

1. Give folks time to look for and identify found pieces. This could an open invite during a party or a set amount of time

2. Write the placards. The secret to this recipe is to follow the formula of so many artist's statements and placards:

   1. Title

   2. Date

   3. Medium (materials used to make the piece)

3. When all the pieces have been identified, the gallery guide will start the tour and proceed room by room. If you have a gallery tour guide who really relishes making things up and public speaking, they can put their best curator voice on and introduce the pieces

4. Each artist (art discoverer) is encouraged to briefly share about their piece

5. This recipe has the potential to be humorous and silly -- lean into it

Notes:

1. For folks who already think of themselves as artists or writers, this may come super naturally. For others-- this is part of the fun! There is no wrong to do art. Someone people may be exceptionally clever or referential and others will be deeply earnest. That's great

2. ChatGPT writes AMAZING artist statements that sound pretentious and silly when paired with pieces found at home

3. Sentence starters to improvise an artist statement:

   • This piece is really evocative/derivative of...

   • This piece highlights the absurdity of ____ and realities of living a contemporary society rife with ____

Substitutions

1. Explore a shared space This could work well at a public park, a garden, or maybe a shared office

2. Surprise gallery tour At a birthday party for a curator friend, we make this recipe as a secret among all the guests and then gave the birthday girl a tour of her own home gallery and the 10 cheeky pieces we all sneakily discovered and wrote placards for

3. For extra art nerds or people who want guidance You can provide folks with names of famous art pieces or references and ask folks to find pieces that fit the name