Chairman of the Hoard.

Art is a process of discovery through materials.

For Nemo Gould, this discovery is not found on a blank canvas or within a block of marble, but from a hoard of junk. It starts with a hunt of conservation, sifting through trash, prowling flea markets, and appraising the offerings from well intentioned enablers of his “high functioning madness.” At this stage there is no clear vision, just the itch of potential in objects deemed useless by society—the more hopeless the case the better.

Nemo collects by a guiding principle: “If you can’t find it, you don’t own it.” This means that the self-titled “Chairman of the Hoard” must be a strict librarian, keeping his Oakland studio’s collection of potential from falling into a hovel of forgotten parts. Crucial to this curation is separating an object from its original purpose. Instrument parts no longer exist to make music, they are knobs, wire, and bits of wood dispersed accordingly. It is through this decontextualized organization that the transformation process begins.

Born in 1975 to artist parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nemo was destined for a creative life. Early explorations in animation show that there was always an interest in kinetic art. However, Nemo also went down the road of traditional fine arts, earning a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1998 and an MFA in sculpture from U.C. Berkeley in 2000. Tinkering and bricolage became a creative escape from the discipline of fine art, the skills of which were added to the shelf, saved for a new purpose. Among this collection of skills are manual machining, various welding techniques, and advanced trial-and-error.

The real art of Nemo’s work is in matchmaking. Items filed away in his refuse refuge eventually make their way to his workbench, where they may find a permanent home together in a work of art. These relationships are made with one well trained eye for aesthetics, and one carefully preserved eye for child-like whimsy. In his own words, Nemo “…[takes] silly very seriously.” The headstock of a violin gets stop-motion arms and clock gear guts; the barrel of a rifle is replaced with a trumpet horn with its business end pointed back at the operator; an antique film rewinder with a saw handle joins with six ball-peen hammers to make a rotary hammer of dubious utility. These are Frankenstein’s monsters of forgotten items given life through interactive mechanisms and anthropomorphized forms, a small act of rebellion against our disposable world.

Written by Kelsey Watson · Plumier Foundation