“In doing the biography of a thing, one would ask questions similar to those one asks about people… Where does the thing come from and who made it?” —Igor Kopytoff
The Lives of Things explores why artists use particular materials in their work, and why those materials matter. Drawing largely from the ICA’s permanent collection, the exhibition considers how artists transform familiar objects and materials into carriers of social, cultural, and political value. Fabric scraps and tea leaves become larger-than-life sculptures. Semi-precious stones are used to depict mold spores. Freshwater pearls become markers of global exchange and exploitative labor practices. Humble materials such as cardboard and magazine clippings point to the precarious status of service workers and the ways people and materials are treated as disposable.
Benches by Massachusetts-based artist Emma Kohlmann, on loan to the museum, highlight artist-designed seating as an extension of local material culture. Made from wood sourced in western Massachusetts, these benches invite visitors to consider the materials that make up the world around us.
The exhibition title, The Lives of Things, draws on cultural anthropologist Igor Kopytoff’s seminal essay “The Cultural Biography of Things,” which suggests that material objects go through multiple “lives” depending on their social and cultural contexts. For example, a cowrie shell might serve as a ritual object, hold monetary value, function as ornamentation, or fulfill all three roles. Like people, materials have biographies that continue to unfold.
