Vintage Typologies
Lost Found Art is a design company that “specializes in sculptural installations and assemblages using antique and vintage pieces”. Their collections are fun to browse through and remind me of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher.
(via present & correct)
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In related work, Diana Zlatanovski pursues typological patterns in the collections of the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. Her book, Typology, is a lovely assemblage.
(I love this blog, so I hope I do not sound like a curmudgeon.)
I was surprised by this entry. I think it would have been stronger with images of the Brecher's work, which does share with this company's *products*, presentations of design similarities and differences in same-purpose-serving utilitarian objects, but the Brecher's beautiful work is layered photographs of structures that they captured shoot in the field and then build up through their dark workroom work.
Secondly, it seems that the company does not appear to do much beyond arranging groups of lovely old objects that other people have designed and made, and really used. These groups contain ingenuity and also traces of lives, of the people who used them in addition to those of the objects (and their ancestors, relatives and offspring) and all that went in to producing them. This business makes me sad, there is no there there, like the resurgent trend of using book collections as just decor. Reinforced by the company's offer to buy whole collections, it feels like loveless and soulless commercial amassing without any attribution, context, history or intellect.
Sometimes, lovely old objects pleasingly arranged is enough. But I get what you're saying about book collection decor tho. It would obviously be more interesting to collect these things yourself, over time, and have a story to tell when a visitor gushes over your hand mirrors or whatever.
Good points, Diana. I don't go out of my way to collect anymore, but when I did, place, circumstances, and shared experience became attached to the pieces.
I collect pigs and I just had to talk myself down from buying the pig cutting boards.
That .cfm extension brings me back! They weren't kidding about "antique and vintage"!
(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_ColdFusion)
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