Week 12: FOUND Magazine's Denim and Diamonds Tour at Big Car Gallery in Fountain Square
FOUND collectors Davy and Peter Rothbart aren’t your usual curators. That random note you might find blowing across the parking lot? That is their art. They collect FOUND objects. Love letters, birthday cards, to-do lists, poetry on napkins, doodles…anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life.
It all started with a note left on Davy’s car in Chicago a few years back, written by a woman named Amber. The note was addressed to Mario. In the note, Amber calls Mario names and tells him she hates him for telling her he’s at work, but “whys your care HERE at HER place??” Yet at the end of the note, she writes “PS Page me later”. According to their website, Davy and Peter loved the “amazing mixture of anger and hopefulness” and shared it with friends. Each friend seemed to have found items to show in return. And so, FOUND magazine was born.
On Tuesday night at
Big Car Gallery in Fountain Square, I had the opportunity to witness their show. Using these found scraps from other peoples’ lives, Davy reads each item as if he were reciting poetry, almost always with some sort of a humorous angle. Teen girls fighting back and forth through words on a scrap of notebook paper; love letters written to people who probably never had the chance to read them; ambitious to-do lists. Davy’s droll spin on these fragments from other lives make you feel like you are at a comedy show. Yet I think I might have seen tears forming when he read a child’s letter to their deceased mother, found near a cemetery.
Davy clearly felt a connection to those artifacts, but his brother Peter did something even more creative. With a guitar as his back-up, Peter sang four songs he wrote using different found items as his muse. One song Peter wrote was based on a note written by someone lamenting about having only enough money for one more beer or bus fare. Which should he choose? Another song was inspired by a cassette tape found in the street. Peter took the words from a hip-hop song on the tape and completely rewrote the music in a different genre. It was a very witty performance (by a pretty good guitar player, too).
The FOUND event was voyeuristic; I even felt slightly guilty, reading private notes meant for somebody else. But it was definitely worth the $8 for a night filled with laughter. I find myself visiting the FOUND website often for their “Find of the Day”. I also find myself wondering what I’ve dropped or left somewhere that someone else might have found. Hmmm…
For more information on FOUND, please visit
www.foundmagazine.com.
For more information on Big Car Gallery, please visit
www.bigcar.org.
If you plan on attending one of the future tour dates, please note this event is not suitable for children, as there may be offensive language or content at the event.
