Secondary Purpose presents a selection of over 80 works from the CURAYTOR collection, amassed over decades by Chicago-based photographer and innkeeper Ray Reiss. The collection spans more than 3,000 objects mostly acquired at thrift stores, flea markets, and local auctions. The eclectic assemblage reflects less a coherent focus than a compulsive accumulation, guided by an affinity for folk, self-taught, and vernacular aesthetics. Unidentified artists, their signatures illegible and biographies unrecorded, share space with more familiar names like Lee Godie, Vivian Maier, Mr. Imagination, and Purvis Young. 

Most things become trash if nobody cares enough to preserve them. When people die their garages are boxed up for Goodwill. From the bottom of a dusty pile, things call out to us nonetheless. A discarded canvas suddenly immobilizes, pulls us into its orbit and insists upon recognition. Whatever the purpose of the object’s creation, something else is happening now. It is unclear what. A polychrome figurine from a Key West junk shop lands in a Bucktown bed & breakfast, circulating with a strange vitality.