Three new works join the Mint’s Craft + Design collection
To commemorate the opening of Mint Museum Uptown in October 2010, the Mint commissioned ten works from ten of the world’s leading Craft + Design artists. Here are updates on the three latest works to be completed in what is known as Project Ten Ten Ten:
Kate Malone. British, 1959-
Mr. and Mrs. Tutti Atomic 2012
Stoneware
Project Ten Ten Ten commission. Museum Purchase: Founder’s Circle 2011 Annual Cause with additional funds provided by Suzu and David Neithercut, Libba and Mike Gaither, Carol and Shelton Gorelick, and Adrian Sassoon. 2012.13A-B
Photograph by Andrew Smart
After making their debut at Mint Museum Uptown in the acclaimed exhibition Fairytales, Fantasy, & Fear (3 March – 8 July 2012), Mr. and Mrs. Tutti Atomic are spending some quality time at Mint Museum Randolph. When commissioned to create work for Project Ten Ten Ten, Kate Malone envisioned two large-scale, brilliantly glazed pots as metaphors for people—a husband and wife team, with their own personalities, who would travel back and forth between the two Mint Museum locations. Malone comments: “So, I hear that Mr. Atomic and Mrs. Tutti are off on a trip to the other side of town. They love to travel and meet new folk, so knowing the collection there I am sure all the pots at Randolph will be getting down to fine parties when the doors are closed at night…Imagine all the pots from those cabinets escaped and animated and dancing through the night…pots, like people from all walks of time and life…what a hoot!”
Cristina Córdova. Puerto Rican (active United States), 1977-
Preludios y Partidas 2012
Ceramic, concrete, steel, resin
T12.71
Cristina Córdova with Preludios y Partidas in her studio (come to Mint Museum Uptown to see what it looks like in the gallery!)
Photograph courtesy of Cristina Córdova
Cristina Córdova’s figural sculpture, Preludios y Partidas, now commands a wall at one end of the ceramics gallery on Level 3 at Mint Museum Uptown. Of this subtle yet powerful psychological work, Córdova says: “In understanding this piece as a metaphorical topography, I wanted to use the title to hint as to what that corresponding psycho-emotional space would be. This landscape is one of transition and like the reference to the distillment of reason and logic from uncertainty and chaos, these figures are in the preliminary charged states (preludios) before a great action (partidas /departures). Although the floating concrete elements could hint of the residual vestiges of a previous reality, I am not thinking of it as further leading to an ending but to the beginning of a new cycle. Common to the human experience are profound shifts where the ground gives way and one is thrust into powerful periods of self-reflection, growth, and renewed vision; this is how this space looks in my mind right before the next grand launch.”
Ayala Serfaty. Israeli, 1962-
Joy of Transition 2012
Glass filaments in polymer membrane with light bulbs
Project Ten Ten Ten commission. Museum Purchase: Founders’ Circle 2011 Annual Cause.
DVD produced with additional funds from The Association of Israel’s Decorative Arts (AIDA).
Photograph courtesy of Ayala Serfaty
Ayala Serfaty’s evocative light sculpture, Joy of Transition, now adorns a corner of the Design Gallery on Level 3 of Mint Museum Uptown. Delicate, ethereal, and fragile, this sculpture is made from glass rods individually heated with a torch and formed into abstract shapes that evoke the natural world. The glass forms are sprayed with a polymer coating and lit from behind so that they glow from within. Joy of Transition is part of a series of light sculptures called SOMA—the Greek word for the human body, chosen to suggest the sculptures’ connection to living beings. The title has many possible interpretations, including the evolution of art, craft, and design, and the opening of the new building at Mint Museum Uptown.