Found

Photographs of various people strung from the ceiling.

Through a space between them and from behind, a woman on the left holds up a photo to show a man sitting next to her.

Three people sit around a table laughing and smiling looking at photographs laid out on the table.

Three students sit behind a table covered in colorful prints and album covers.

A red toy train with "Union Pacific" in white letters on the side rests on a small train track attached to a wall. The train has pieces of broken, white marble in it.

Eleven white-painted panels lined up on a wall. Each panel is whiter than the one to the left of it.

With associations of discovery, recognition, and perception, found is a powerful word suggesting that a thing lost has been regained, or a new possibility has been revealed. Here, collectors create new meaning for lost or discarded objects while artists incorporate such materials into their art making—all revealing the vast potential for complex and fundamental human truths inherent in what is lost or overlooked.

Explore art using found materials by clicking on the images above and browsing the content below.

Explore collection stories—texts, videos, and creative responses from faculty, students, artists, scholars, and curators to works in the Tang collection.

A black and white photograph of a white, young female running through a field looking over her shoulder with a scarecrow in the background.

Associate Professor of English Melora Wolff’s

Hayman

A Black man lifts his glasses to his forehead while looking down at a black and white photograph.

Daesha Devón Harris, Luis Jimenez Inoa, and Kambui Olujimi on

Family Photos and Black Joy

A photograph of a young, Black female sitting in front of a painted, garden background facing the camera.

Daesha Devón Harris on

Tending Our Mothers’ Gardens

A cream and blue album cover with the shape of a man and a record styled like a sun and text, "THE IMMEASURABLE EQUATION."

John Corbett on

Sun Ra Archive

A close-up of an open book with punched-out holes all over the page disrupting the text.

Sonya Clark on

Being invisible and without substance

A red toy train with "Union Pacific" on the side in white letters holds broken pieces of white marble. The train is separated across two train tracks that are hung parallel to each other on a wall.

Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Political Science Beau Breslin on

Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler’s Constitution on Tour, 1991

A small wooden spool wrapped with colorful thread.

Dario Robleto on

Sampling & Manipulating Objects into Art

Four postcards in a grid that depict a cliff-side beach with black script that says, "Birth Place of Venus, Paphos." Three postcards have a single woman lounging on the beach.

John S. Weber on

Joachim Schmid’s Archiv

A checklist with text on the left and thumbnails images of black and white photographs on the right.

View or download the checklist here!

Teaching Ideas

Associate Professor of Art Sarah Sweeney’s class “Picturing Time,” which considers time as subject and medium, held a discussion around photographs from the Tang collection.

Throughout the semester, students read and wrote about related concepts such as past and future, duration, stopped time, and simultaneity, among others, and made art using time-based media. At the Tang the class examined photographs and discussed how the invention of photography shaped the perception of time.

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Close-Looking Exercise

For a visual literacy assignment related to this ambrotype, download the PDF below. Interested in other artwork from the collection? Contact Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs Rachel Seligman.

View or download the close-looking exercise here!

A black and white photograph of a young, Black girl in a dress. The photograph is in a brown and bronze frame.

Artist Collections

Donor Collections

Thematic Collections

Tang Collective Catalogs are short written responses from a multiplicity of voices responding to objects in the Tang Teaching Museum collection.

A larger-than-life sculpture of a brown, paper grocery bad with "Thank you" printed in black script across the front with red flowers, green snowflakes, and a green cornucopia decorating the bag.

Emily Hench ’17
May 10, 2017

I have encountered Politeness Counts many times on walks through campus. It is easy to become desensitized to sights that are part of an everyday routine, but Seliger’s piece still stands out to me each time I see it. His enlarged reinterpretation of an everyday object causes me to think about the bags we amass from various purchases. Flimsy supermarket and takeout bags covered with phrase ‘thank you’ come to mind. This rather permanent recreation of a common item draws attention to the usage and value of those two words.