For something to be found, it first needs to have been lost. The Foundling Museum’s temporary exhibition, entitled Found, is a subtly moving mixture of loss, fate, hope and love.
Contemporary artist Cornelia Parker was asked to curate it and in response she has interwoven personal objects among the Foundling’s existing displays. Indeed the exhibition is partly inspired by the objects, known as tokens, held in the collection that mothers left with their babies as a means of identification should they ever be able to return for them.
Within this context, Parker has invited more than 60 artists from different media and disciplines to respond to the theme of “found” to reflect on the museum’s stories. They have replied by offering an amalgamation of personal and found objects. Some are keepsakes, some are long-held possessions and some are new works of art. Participating artists and contributors include Richard Deacon, Ron Arad, Jeremy Deller, Rachel Whiteread and David Shrigley. Each object has its own meaning and significance.
This kind of exhibition is not new – in fact there has been a swathe of recent interventions from contemporary artists interpreting historic collections: from George Shaw’s paintings responding to the collection at London’s National Gallery (on until 16 September), to Grayson Perry’s works peppering the National Portrait Gallery’s collection in 2015, and his The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman exhibition at the British Museum in 2012. Not to mention Sarah Lucas’s Power in Women sculptures recently at the Sir John Soane’s Museum (10 March-21 May).
But if you think the format might be becoming stale, you’d be wrong. Parker has assembled a compelling range of works and it feels fresh, important and deeply moving. Found has emerged from Parker’s Hogarth Foundling Fellowship, a biennial scheme that requires the Foundling Fellow in question to create a detailed response that animates the relationship between philanthropy, creativity and children’s welfare. Parker’s show follows previous Hogarth Fellow Yinka Shonibare, whose work also features here. Found and re-used objects feature frequently in Parker’s own works, which are weaved in among the collection here too. The move from artist to curator is seamless and a natural extension of Parker’s artistic practice.
Personal stories
In the ground floor Introductory Galleries, new objects have been carefully placed among the long-standing interpretation and story of the creation of the Foundling itself. One contributor, Sue Prichard, the curator of decorative arts at Royal Museums Greenwich, found her grandfather’s torn childhood sailor suit and broken little spade and, later, the story of his adoption.
Next door, in the Committee Room, the printmaker Norman Ackroyd’s rediscovered etching of infant graves illustrates both the reality of his chance find and his guilt at intruding on an unknown mother’s private loss.
It is an incredibly moving work and will be donated to the Foundling’s collection once the show is over.
Upstairs, in the minute Ante Room, Antony Gormley’s tiny, bronze newborn left abandoned on the floor is both upsetting and monumental, and should provoke a reaction from even the most steel-hearted of viewers.
The show’s interpretation is particularly interesting – ubiquitous but subtle – as Parker has given the artists free rein to respond in a manner of their own choosing, with the results printed verbatim. Some do so with letters back to her about why they chose their piece, others reveal a somewhat wandering brief, some are just left blank. Sculptor Bill Woodrow’s is searingly honest, confessing not to remember how his work came to be. All are displayed using standard text panels, which helps to compound the personal feeling of the show – in one sense heavily interpreted, yet without an overarching narrative voice – and works to the show’s credit.
Parker allows viewers a multitude of ways to access and make meaning of the textured material on show. There really is something here that will strike a chord with every visitor.
The temporary exhibition gallery space downstairs is packed with curated objects. It feels like a microcosm of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA): it takes place at the same time of year, a high percentage of the RA’s membership are on display, and Parker curated a room for that very show in 2014.
The downstairs exhibition evokes the history of the Foundling itself, which was supported by artists of the day, including the famous satirist and Foundling co-founder William Hogarth.
In one sense, Parker’s fellow academicians and friends are replicating this generosity once more, centuries later. The temporary gallery’s white cube-like space feels like you have wandered into a show within a show, juxtaposed to and separate from the rest. A few found objects are mixed with new art, but the artworks chosen are themselves often lost, repurposed or damaged.
Paradise lost, and found
Some moments do jar. I found the musical connections distracting and irrelevant. Though beautifully rearranged, Hendrix’s staircase feels like it should be reassembled at 23 Brook Street – where he lived and now part of the Handel and Hendrix in London museum – not here, and a skim-read of Jeremy Deller’s donation of Lennon’s school detention sheet takes you far away from London all the way to a Liverpool classroom.
I am not sure these things form part of the “collective cacophony” that Parker states she aimed for. But maybe this is the point. Moments, like objects, are found, forgotten, refound and rediscovered, only to gain new meanings here, in the context of the Foundling.
The sheer range of moving objects brought together in this visually brilliant slice through the thoughts of contemporary artists evokes many feelings. The fate of these objects, once again found, is synonymous with the stories of the children cared for by the Foundling Hospital (and the Coram charity next door today) – found again and celebrated by the Foundling Museum. Collectively, it is a poignant triumph of a show.
Ben Pearce is the director of Paintings in Hospitals
The premise of the exhibition is the first part of the word Foundling as the central idea. The show is a collection of artists who have contributed something they have “found” and utilised in their own work, or an object they have collected that has a special meaning for them, or refers to that which is lost.
The found object interests me because it’s already got a past, a prehistory; it’s not ready-made,a new thing straight off the shelf. A lot of artists use the found object in their work. Sometimes it’s a proxy for an emotion that perhaps is neglected, and it’s easier to find an equivalent substitute, a stand-in for emotion. Like the little 18th-century tokens that were left with the babies, the mothers had to go through a certain thought process to be able to select them.
Firstly I responded to the things that artists sent in, then began thinking about key things I wanted in the show such as Nomad (a bronze cast of a homeless sleeper) by Gavin Turk or Mark Wallinger’s The Unconscious (portraits of people asleep on the tube found on the internet). I’m quite intuitive and spontaneous. It’s not me to make an analysis of the work, but to make a shape out of it, to strike connections between the artists’ contributions and the Foundling collection.
I wanted to throw a slight spanner in the works and not do something just about foundlings; other artists have done it so brilliantly in the past.
I wanted to explore the idea of objects as surrogates instead.
Cornelia Parker is an artist and the curator of Found
Main funders Arts Council England; Gander & White; Found Exhibition Supporters Circle
Exhibition design Joe Ewart for Society
Admission MA members £7.50, Adults £10.25, Children free
Exhibition ends 4 September
Contemporary artist Cornelia Parker was asked to curate it and in response she has interwoven personal objects among the Foundling’s existing displays. Indeed the exhibition is partly inspired by the objects, known as tokens, held in the collection that mothers left with their babies as a means of identification should they ever be able to return for them.
Within this context, Parker has invited more than 60 artists from different media and disciplines to respond to the theme of “found” to reflect on the museum’s stories. They have replied by offering an amalgamation of personal and found objects. Some are keepsakes, some are long-held possessions and some are new works of art. Participating artists and contributors include Richard Deacon, Ron Arad, Jeremy Deller, Rachel Whiteread and David Shrigley. Each object has its own meaning and significance.
This kind of exhibition is not new – in fact there has been a swathe of recent interventions from contemporary artists interpreting historic collections: from George Shaw’s paintings responding to the collection at London’s National Gallery (on until 16 September), to Grayson Perry’s works peppering the National Portrait Gallery’s collection in 2015, and his The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman exhibition at the British Museum in 2012. Not to mention Sarah Lucas’s Power in Women sculptures recently at the Sir John Soane’s Museum (10 March-21 May).
But if you think the format might be becoming stale, you’d be wrong. Parker has assembled a compelling range of works and it feels fresh, important and deeply moving. Found has emerged from Parker’s Hogarth Foundling Fellowship, a biennial scheme that requires the Foundling Fellow in question to create a detailed response that animates the relationship between philanthropy, creativity and children’s welfare. Parker’s show follows previous Hogarth Fellow Yinka Shonibare, whose work also features here. Found and re-used objects feature frequently in Parker’s own works, which are weaved in among the collection here too. The move from artist to curator is seamless and a natural extension of Parker’s artistic practice.
Personal stories
In the ground floor Introductory Galleries, new objects have been carefully placed among the long-standing interpretation and story of the creation of the Foundling itself. One contributor, Sue Prichard, the curator of decorative arts at Royal Museums Greenwich, found her grandfather’s torn childhood sailor suit and broken little spade and, later, the story of his adoption.
Next door, in the Committee Room, the printmaker Norman Ackroyd’s rediscovered etching of infant graves illustrates both the reality of his chance find and his guilt at intruding on an unknown mother’s private loss.
It is an incredibly moving work and will be donated to the Foundling’s collection once the show is over.
Upstairs, in the minute Ante Room, Antony Gormley’s tiny, bronze newborn left abandoned on the floor is both upsetting and monumental, and should provoke a reaction from even the most steel-hearted of viewers.
The show’s interpretation is particularly interesting – ubiquitous but subtle – as Parker has given the artists free rein to respond in a manner of their own choosing, with the results printed verbatim. Some do so with letters back to her about why they chose their piece, others reveal a somewhat wandering brief, some are just left blank. Sculptor Bill Woodrow’s is searingly honest, confessing not to remember how his work came to be. All are displayed using standard text panels, which helps to compound the personal feeling of the show – in one sense heavily interpreted, yet without an overarching narrative voice – and works to the show’s credit.
Parker allows viewers a multitude of ways to access and make meaning of the textured material on show. There really is something here that will strike a chord with every visitor.
The temporary exhibition gallery space downstairs is packed with curated objects. It feels like a microcosm of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA): it takes place at the same time of year, a high percentage of the RA’s membership are on display, and Parker curated a room for that very show in 2014.
The downstairs exhibition evokes the history of the Foundling itself, which was supported by artists of the day, including the famous satirist and Foundling co-founder William Hogarth.
In one sense, Parker’s fellow academicians and friends are replicating this generosity once more, centuries later. The temporary gallery’s white cube-like space feels like you have wandered into a show within a show, juxtaposed to and separate from the rest. A few found objects are mixed with new art, but the artworks chosen are themselves often lost, repurposed or damaged.
Paradise lost, and found
Some moments do jar. I found the musical connections distracting and irrelevant. Though beautifully rearranged, Hendrix’s staircase feels like it should be reassembled at 23 Brook Street – where he lived and now part of the Handel and Hendrix in London museum – not here, and a skim-read of Jeremy Deller’s donation of Lennon’s school detention sheet takes you far away from London all the way to a Liverpool classroom.
I am not sure these things form part of the “collective cacophony” that Parker states she aimed for. But maybe this is the point. Moments, like objects, are found, forgotten, refound and rediscovered, only to gain new meanings here, in the context of the Foundling.
The sheer range of moving objects brought together in this visually brilliant slice through the thoughts of contemporary artists evokes many feelings. The fate of these objects, once again found, is synonymous with the stories of the children cared for by the Foundling Hospital (and the Coram charity next door today) – found again and celebrated by the Foundling Museum. Collectively, it is a poignant triumph of a show.
Ben Pearce is the director of Paintings in Hospitals
Focus on: Artist as curator
I think of curating as building an installation, it’s the same process as creating my own work. I’m always reconfiguring and arranging objects, so this was just a case of extending that process to a bigger family of artists, writers and musicians. The premise of the exhibition is the first part of the word Foundling as the central idea. The show is a collection of artists who have contributed something they have “found” and utilised in their own work, or an object they have collected that has a special meaning for them, or refers to that which is lost.
The found object interests me because it’s already got a past, a prehistory; it’s not ready-made,a new thing straight off the shelf. A lot of artists use the found object in their work. Sometimes it’s a proxy for an emotion that perhaps is neglected, and it’s easier to find an equivalent substitute, a stand-in for emotion. Like the little 18th-century tokens that were left with the babies, the mothers had to go through a certain thought process to be able to select them.
Firstly I responded to the things that artists sent in, then began thinking about key things I wanted in the show such as Nomad (a bronze cast of a homeless sleeper) by Gavin Turk or Mark Wallinger’s The Unconscious (portraits of people asleep on the tube found on the internet). I’m quite intuitive and spontaneous. It’s not me to make an analysis of the work, but to make a shape out of it, to strike connections between the artists’ contributions and the Foundling collection.
I wanted to throw a slight spanner in the works and not do something just about foundlings; other artists have done it so brilliantly in the past.
I wanted to explore the idea of objects as surrogates instead.
Cornelia Parker is an artist and the curator of Found
Project data
Cost £61,000Main funders Arts Council England; Gander & White; Found Exhibition Supporters Circle
Exhibition design Joe Ewart for Society
Admission MA members £7.50, Adults £10.25, Children free
Exhibition ends 4 September
