On vintage, the curated flea market, and the alchemy of the found object
Writing for The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, I report from a Shoreditch market, where I have just paid a considerable sum for an object that is, on close inspection, somebody else’s discarded rubbish, transformed by the alchemy of curation into a desirable vintage find. My other market dispatches are at my page.
The Alchemy of the Found Object
The markets of Shoreditch perform a genuine alchemy, the transformation of rubbish into treasure, of the discarded into the desirable, of someone’s old junk into a curated vintage find worth a considerable sum. The object that was thrown away, that ended up in a charity shop or a house clearance or a skip, is rescued, curated, displayed, and sold, at a markup that reflects not the object itself, which is the same old junk it always was, but the transformation, the curation, the conferral of desirability.
I participate fully in this alchemy, a regular at the markets, a buyer of transformed rubbish, a collector of curated finds that are, examined honestly, old junk made desirable by the magic of the market. The vintage clothing, the retro furniture, the found objects, the salvaged ephemera, all of it someone else’s discarded rubbish, all of it transformed into treasure, all of it sold to me, and people like me, at a markup that the magic of curation justifies.
The Value That Is Conferred
What exactly am I paying for, when I buy the curated rubbish at the markup? Not the object, which is worth, in itself, nothing, having been discarded as worthless. I am paying for the curation, the selection, the transformation, the conferral of desirability that the market performs. The market’s value lies not in the objects, which are junk, but in the alchemy, the curation that turns junk into treasure, the magic that makes the discarded desirable.
This is a genuine value, in its way, the curation a real service, the selection a real skill, the transformation a real alchemy. The market trader who finds the desirable object among the junk, who recognises the treasure in the rubbish, who curates the collection and confers the desirability, performs a genuine service, adds a genuine value, even if the value is added to objects that are, in themselves, worthless. The guides that celebrate these markets, the likes of Visit London, are celebrating this alchemy, this transformation, this conferral of value on the valueless.
The Desire for the Found
Behind the alchemy lies a genuine desire, the Shoreditch desire for the found object, the vintage piece, the thing with history, the object that is not new, not mass-produced, not from the high street, but found, salvaged, unique, possessed of a past. This desire is real, a reaction against the mass-produced and the new, a longing for the authentic and the historied, a preference for the object that was someone else’s before it was yours.
The markets serve this desire, supplying the found objects, the vintage pieces, the things with history, satisfying the longing for the authentic and the salvaged. That the objects are, often, simply old junk does not diminish the desire, for the desire is not for quality, exactly, but for foundness, for history, for the quality of having been discarded and rescued, of possessing a past, of being unique and salvaged rather than new and mass-produced. The junk satisfies this desire precisely by being junk, old and historied and found.
The Markup I Accept
So I accept the markup, pay the considerable sum, buy the transformed rubbish, satisfy my desire for the found object, participate in the alchemy of the market. I know, really, that I am buying someone else’s discarded junk, that the object is worth, in itself, nothing, that the value is conferred rather than inherent. And I pay anyway, for the curation, for the foundness, for the satisfaction of the desire for the salvaged and the historied, accepting the markup as the price of the alchemy.
This is, I have decided, a perfectly reasonable transaction, despite its absurdity. I want the found object; the market supplies it; the markup is the price of the supply. That the object is junk and the value conferred does not make the transaction a swindle, for I receive what I came for, the found object, the curated treasure, the satisfaction of the desire for the salvaged. The alchemy is real, even if the gold was rubbish, and I pay for the alchemy willingly.
The Treasure I Carry Home
The Object’s Second Life
There is something I find genuinely moving in the markets, beneath the markup and the alchemy and the absurdity, which is the second life the markets give to objects, the rescue of the discarded, the salvation of the thrown-away, the conferral of new value and new purpose on things that had been deemed worthless. The object that was discarded, that ended its first life as rubbish, is given a second life by the market, rescued and curated and sold and carried home to be valued again, to serve again, to be part of someone’s life again. This second life is a genuine good, a redemption of the discarded, a refusal to let the thrown-away remain rubbish, and the markets, for all their markup and absurdity, perform this redemption, give these second lives, rescue these objects from the finality of the skip. I think of this when I carry home my curated find, my transformed rubbish, my considerable purchase, that I am giving an object a second life, rescuing it from discard, valuing again what someone else threw away. The markup is real, and the alchemy is absurd, but the second life is genuine, and there is a kind of grace in it, the rescue of the discarded, the redemption of the thrown-away, the second life the market gives to the objects it transforms from rubbish into treasure.
So I will carry home my treasure, my curated find, my transformed rubbish, my considerable purchase, satisfied with my participation in the alchemy of the market. The object will sit in my flat, historied and found and unique, someone else’s discarded junk made desirable by curation, and I will be pleased with it, will value it, will have received from it the satisfaction I paid for. The markets of Shoreditch sell you someone else’s rubbish at a considerable markup, and I buy it, willingly and repeatedly, for the alchemy is real, the desire is genuine, and the treasure, transformed from junk by the magic of curation, is, despite everything, exactly what I wanted.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
