Myrtle Beach, SC - Anthropologists consider the use of tools a major step in human evolution. Imagine what they’d say about a collection of artworks created about – and from – everyday tools and hardware. The exhibit, comprising 56 witty, light-hearted works by prominent and emerging contemporary artists that celebrate these utilitarian objects, is called Tools in Motion: Works from the Hechinger Collection .  On exhibition through 28 March at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum.

The collection is drawn from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, amassed by a former D.C.-based hardware and building-supply company owner who began collecting the artworks in 1978 to decorate the family business. Spanning a wide range of styles, the exhibition spotlights the dignity of everyday tools where form and function are inextricably linked.

The clever content and style and visually intriguing works will prove thought-provoking for visitors of all ages, allowing them to explore new art and introducing them to important contemporary artists, such as Arman, Claes Oldenburg and Jim Dine.

Through the hands and the vision of the artists, common utilitarian objects take on a whole new existence. The works offer such mind-bending visual experiences as an image of a man happily sawing himself off a high perch or a huge “school” of vise grips swimming in the ocean. Light bulbs are transformed into butterflies and rusted tools morph into birds or the sails of a wooden boat.

The collection features a series of “kodaliths” by acclaimed designer Ivan Chermayeff: striking black and white photographs with no halftones that display various hardware items in an almost abstract fashion. Also included is Tool Box, a set of silkscreen prints by renowned artist Jim Dine, which juxtapose real and invented objects in a playful blurring of art and life.

The Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum is a wholly nonprofit institution located across from Springmaid Pier at 3100 South Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.  Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.  Admission is free, but donations are welcomed.  Components of Museum programs are funded in part by support from the City of Myrtle Beach, the Horry County Council and the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Admission to the Museum is free, but donations are welcomed. For further information, call 843-238-2510 or visit www.MyrtleBeachArtMuseum.org.