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The Museum of Arts and Design inaugurated its new home at Columbus Circle with Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, a special thematic exhibition featuring 51 contemporary artists from 17 countries who transform discarded, commonplace, or valueless objects into extraordinary works of art. On view from September 27, 2008 through April 19, 2009, Second Lives includes new commissions and site-specific installations, created from gun triggers, spools of thread, tires, hypodermic needles, dog tags, old eyeglasses, and telephone books, among other manufactured and mass-produced objects. Highlighting the creative processes that repurpose these objects, the exhibition explores the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary and stimulates debate on function, value, and identity.

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"Reflecting the museum's core mission of celebrating materials and process, Second Lives explores the creative approaches of contemporary artists who give existing objects new life and meaning by transforming them into compelling works of art," said Holly Hotchner, Director of the Museum of Arts and Design. "We live in a world populated, and sometimes overpopulated, with consumer products. These artists make magic using society's castoffs and overlooked items. While the focus of the exhibition is neither on sustainability nor recycling, the works in the exhibition are a catalyst for thought and discussion about these issues. In addition, Second Lives is especially timely as the museum marks its own second life as a renewed institution and as Columbus Circle enjoys its own renaissance."

Organized by Chief Curator David Revere McFadden, Curator Lowery Stokes Sims, and Adjunct Curator Brian Parkes, Second Lives reflects a current interest among international artists in using ordinary objects as raw materials, an approach rooted in both Dada and Surrealism. The works on view bear implicit social commentaries and explore themes of power, politics, identity, and value. Moreover, each work remains faithful to the traditional standards of craftsmanship, seen in processes that include carving, cabinetmaking, applique, and collage.

"Our perceptions of objects as being functional or aesthetic, cheap or invaluable are directly challenged in the works on view in Second Lives," said McFadden. "The 40 artists featured are working in ways that resist categorization and that further underscore a breakdown in the hierarchy that has traditionally separated art, craft, and design. Instead, these intricately crafted works reveal an intense engagement with ideas, meaning, materiality, and process."

The exhibition begins with a selection of works from the 1990s by Tejo Remy, Ingo Maurer, and the Campana brothers among others that provide an introduction to repurposing of objects in design. The exhibition traces the development of this concept through a group of works created within the past eight years by both established and emerging artists, including Therese Agnew, El Anatsui, Hew Locke, Devorah Sperber, Cornelia Parker, Xu Bing, Do Ho Suh, Susie MacMurray and Fred Wilson, among others.

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