PROBABLY THE OBSERVATION by Virginia Overton cited most often by writers came on the occasion of her 2013 exhibition at Switzerland’s Kunsthalle Bern. Wishing to tease out the artist’s thoughts on the found objects used for her sculpture, the exhibition’s curator, Fabrice Stroun, asked a relatively straightforward—if historically loaded—question: Is “a piece of wood looked at in a space consecrated for art . . . no longer the same piece of wood found on the side of the road”? It’s a reasonable line of inquiry, particularly given that Overton’s work suggests some nominal underpinnings, if only