The objects are what make up the visible world and decisively determine our attitude towards it, our worldview. In this study, Alkis Charalambidis tracks, step by step, the journey from the visual realm of two dimensions to the realm of real objects.

By referring to movements, artists, and works, he highlights the main expressions of the presence of the ready-made object as a carrier of messages and as an aesthetic medium. The book "Art from Things" constitutes a comprehensive and timely narrative of the adventure of the object; from the experiments of the Cubists with collage to the "insensitivity" of readymades, from the paradoxical associations of the Surrealists and its idealization as waste in Junk Art, Nouveau Réalisme, and Arte Povera to the "idolatry" of Pop Art.

From its dystopian version in Environments and its primordial expressions in Zero to its protean dimension in Informel and from the mystery of its concealment to the complete obliteration of any material trace in Conceptual Art. The object, integrated within the broader environmental discourse, continues to hold a central position in the trends of 21st-century art, at a time when the dialectical relationship between the material and the immaterial, the analog and the digital, the natural and the artificial is undergoing constant transformation.

The coherent organization of the content, the analytical and interpretative nature of the examples, and the rich illustration of the book make it a valuable tool in the hands of both specialists and non-specialists.

Alkis Charalambidis is an art historian, emeritus professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.