Marta Minujín

What does colour add to an everyday object? 

The first was a mattress from my bedroom. Once the colours arrived, it was a full explosion of colour. The metaphor is simple: Why not take the language of art to a place where we spend half of our life? Marta Minujín   

Mattress is a handmade futon stitched by Marta Minujín and painted in bright neon colours. As a familiar object, you can look at the material and imagine how it feels to touch. It’s part of a series of works that the artist started making in 1961, when she lived in Paris. Minujín would take old mattresses from local hospitals or dumps and transform them into colourful artworks. For Minujín, mattresses represent human life and experience, because we spend so much time using them. Can you think of any other everyday objects that should be turned into works of art?