Found Object Show – Art Without Intent

An exhibition of found objects transcending their forms through time and circumstance

November 14–16, 2025

NYC

ART WITHOUT INTENT

A “found object” is something out of control.

Age vandalized its appearance. Circumstance hijacked its function. Obscurity overwrote its significance. Tearing through time, ravaged by the random, a found object breaks from the design of its creator to emerge today as something liberated from prescribed form and meaning.

Although it’s man-made, it is now alien to us. Although it’s here and now, it abides elsewhere in time and space. The found object is an illegible, unknowable thing, out of reach even when in hand.

Here we may find art without intent.

Transformed physically and contextually, a found object sometimes packs the same aesthetic and conceptual punch of conventional art. But without artistic motive nor objective meaning, it must lie in wait to ambush an imagination. As old as human consciousness itself, our reflexive appreciation of found objects is an artistic muscle latent within us all.

Art without intent ennobles the random, celebrates the anonymous, and embraces the subjective, empowering individuals to see art where they may least expect to find it.

THE SHOW

In its fourth year, the Found Object Show returns to NYC on November 14–16, 2025. The unpredictable and diverse material is presented unaltered, each piece offered as-found by exhibitors. All objects will be available for sale.

General Admission $10. Tickets available to purchase online or at the door. Visitors of all ages are welcome (under 18 free). Advance tickets are recommended.

Join us for a special show preview on Friday, 11/14 at 4pm. Tickets are $45 and help support the show.

FOUND OBJECT SHOW
Nov. 14—16, 2025

SHOW HOURS
Friday, 11/14 | 5pm – 9pm
Saturday, 11/15 | 10am – 6pm
Sunday, 11/16 | 10am – 4pm

BUY TICKETS

516 W 26TH ST SUITE 315 NYC

Enter the building at the 516 entrance and take the elevators to the third floor.
Follow signs to Suite 315.

The project of nine art and antique dealers, the first Found Object Show opened in the spring of 2022 in the Lower East Side. With attendees ranging from diehard collectors to curious kids, the exhibition sought to inspire and mystify, with found object encounters as captured by The New Yorker, Antiques & The Arts, and show visitors. Although only on view in person for a few days, the 96 objects in the show are each featured in our exhibition book, Art Without Intent.

The annual show has since expanded to a gallery in Chelsea and features twenty exhibitors. Click here for a virtual tour of Found Object 2023.

ART WITHOUT INTENT BOOK

Our debut exhibition book is now available for sale. Full-color, 150-page first editions of The Found Object Show: Art Without Intent are available for purchase for $48 including free US shipping (limited availability).

International buyers please contact us for shipping quote.

BOOKSTORE

Click here to purchase our exhibition books.

You may also view or download our online catalog and price list from the 2022 exhibition.

2025 EXHIBITORS

Found Object Show exhibitors each have a different approach to the concept of art without intent, collecting objects reflecting their own unique dialogues with the material past.