object

object.
A term applied to a type of three-dimensional work (generally fairly small) made up of any materials that take the artist's fancy and usually put together with some symbolic or ironic meaning. Works in this vein were produced by the Dadaists, but it was the Surrealists who really cultivated the object. It is impossible to define the term with any great precision, and in addition to the objet trouvé and the ready-made, both of which have a fairly clearly understood meaning, the Surrealists listed (or invented) various categories, many of which seem intended to mystify rather than clarify. The most famous of all Surrealist objects is probably Meret Oppenheim's Cup, Saucer and Spoon in Fur (MoMA, New York, 1936), also known simply as Object.