In recent years, many visual art exhibitions have given prominence to objects. These objects are not those that – due to their status or showcasing – are recognized in the art world and already having inherent aesthetic value, but rather everyday objects that we either accumulate around us or destroy when they are no longer useful. These commonplace utilitarian or decorative objects occupy our everyday spaces and impact our personal lives. In giving them a “second life,” artists may be resisting a system of planned obsolescence and opposing the aesthetics of immateriality.

Today, the meaning of the word “fetish” extends to many fields. The term, however, originally appeared in the context of the colonization of Africa. A word of Portuguese origin, feitiço is associated with the animist cult. The fetish-object is linked to magic, spells and bewitched objects and thus is conductive to superstition. Yet this word has outlasted its African origin. Since the end of the 19th century, it has shiftted to various fields, all linked to the social sciences, such as anthropology, but also political economy and psychoanalysis. The Surrealist art movement, which was intrigued by the idea of the unconscious, took an interest in what the world of objects could reveal on a dream level. Objects might take on the evocative power of having a “soul” with a logic of its own and magical properties.