It is the objects that make up the visible world and that decisively determine our attitude towards it, our worldview. In this study Alkis Charalambidis follows step by step the exit from the visual space of two dimensions to the space of real objects. With reference to currents, artists and works, he highlights the main manifestations of the presence of the ready-made object as a carrier of messages and as an aesthetic medium. Art out of Things constitutes a comprehensive and timely narrative of the adventure of the object; from the Cubists’ experimentation with collage to the “anaesthesia” of the readymades, from the Surrealists’ paradoxical associations to the idealization of the object as a discard in Junk Art, Nouveau Réalisme and Arte Povera to the “idolatry” of Pop Art, from its dystopian version in Environments and its primitive manifestations in Zero to its protean dimension in Informel, and from the mystery of its concealment to the total erasure of every material trace in Conceptual Art. The object, with its integration within the broader environmental concern, continues to occupy a central position in the trends of 21st century art, in an era when the dialectical relationship between material and immaterial, analogue and digital, natural and artificial is under constant transformation and when the boundaries of artistic creation have shifted beyond painting and sculpture, into a vague, undefined area of the cultural phenomenon. The coherent organization of the content, the analytical and interpretive nature of the examples, and the rich illustrations make the book a valuable tool in the hands of experts and non-specialists alike.