Currently at The Minories gallery, Colchester, is the exhibition USE / A Miscellany of Collections, which as a title for an art exhibition, does exactly what it says on the tin.

If Duchamp was the pioneer of the readymade artwork, then this is verging towards a readymade exhibition. Would Duchamp be proud? He might be hooked to the line of hooks hung in ascending order of scale, or fixated by the screws, but he may also think it takes the biscuit (well nearly the biscuit, they’ve nabbed the coffee stirrers).

The curation of the exhibition seems to track minimalist tendencies and has something of the Martin Creed about it. If you ever thought art resulted in objectification, this exhibition definitely does – it’s objects, plain and simple!

An assemblage of miscellaneous collections, each object acts as a line in an overarching narrative of the exhibition as a whole. You may read into it some domestic or nostalgic theme fixated on the past, however the taxonomy is far from taxing.

Although fellow visitors at the exhibition seemed to get hung up on the hooks, the objects – which are used almost unconsciously in the everyday – could collude with consumerist ideals. Objects are replicated, mass produced and combined, and given a higher status than their typical everyday neglect.

The exhibition is on until the May 10, 2014 and admission is free.

Words: Emily Godden