The term for an everyday object presented as art, especially in a Surrealist context, is objet trouvé. Literally meaning “found object,” the phrase describes an ordinary thing selected, displaced, or recontextualized so that it acquires artistic or symbolic meaning.
Surrealists valued found objects because chance encounters could produce unexpected associations. A familiar item removed from its practical setting might appear strange, poetic, humorous, or dreamlike. Artists used this strategy in assemblages, collages, photography, and exhibition displays, often challenging the boundary between art and daily life.
Objet trouvé overlaps with Marcel Duchamp’s readymade, but the terms are not always interchangeable. A readymade usually refers to an existing manufactured object deliberately designated as art, as in Duchamp’s Fountain of 1917. Objet trouvé is broader and is particularly associated with objects discovered or selected for their uncanny, evocative, or accidental qualities.
Collage and assemblage are techniques or forms that may incorporate found objects; they are not the most precise name for the object itself.