What is this site?

This site is dedicated to relatively unknown artworks from the twentieth century. Very often they are examples of commercial art, broadly defined, selected because they have 'qualities' beyond that implied by their original purpose. 



This 'de-purposed' art seems to be distinct from 'found art' because it already exists as a created artistic product. Perhaps one of the intuitions at the root of 'de-purposing' rather than 're-purposing' artefacts, is that it is a good thing to let the aesthetic, transcendent or subversive potential of an object float free from the mundane associations of the purposed world. The need to get things done in the workaday world often obscures the beauty of a particular configuration or moment. 

Ultimately it would be nice to de-purpose the world.  But until then, here are some pictures.


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