MOLAA Permanent Collection - New Acquisitions
We are proud to announce two new acquisitions for our Permanent Collection—a sculpture by Brazilian conceptual artist Tunga (Antônio José de Barros Carvalho de Mello Mourão) and a watercolor drawing by the Cuban art collective Los Carpinteros (Marco Castillo, Dagoberto Rodríguez, Alexandre Arrechea, —Arrechea left the collective in 2003).
Tunga’s Cups for Argamenon’s Mask, is an example of the artist’s esoteric universe of objects and installations in which he rewrites—or creates new—myths, by combining reality with poetry, using symbolic materials, literary references, spiritual elements and iconographic imagery. A non-literal reference to the Mycenaean funeral gold Mask of Agamemnon (1550 BCE-1500 BCE), this sculpture possesses the sacred quality of an archeological relic or a holy chalice. However, it is an austere and strange object that somehow manages to appear familiar to us. Such allegorical forms—bells, chalices, urns and metallic materials like iron, copper, gold, lead—are recurrent in Tunga’s art. They serve as the poetic devices of his conceptual work which advocates organic and subjective art and stems from the legacy of Brazilian Neo-Concrete artists such as Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica.
Tunga’s work has been presented in a number of important venues such as El Museo del Barrio, New York (2008); P.S.1/MoMA, New York (2007-2008); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2007); the Venice Biennial (2001); the Lyon Biennial (2000) and the São Paulo Biennial (1981, 1994, 1998). Tunga lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and Paris.
Formed in 1991, Los Carpinteros’ work is the result of the hybridization between the functionality of architecture and everyday objects with a humorous twist. In A Plan for a Summer House, Los Carpinteros propose an imaginary space—a blueprint or floor plan in the shape of an airplane—of a house whose functionality is only symbolic since the actual realization of this design seems impractical in the real world. The artists’ sculptures, installations and drawings convey a socio-political commentary on commodities and the realm of the domestic. They are combined with things such as a drawing of a coffee pot made out of bricks that is also supposed to be an oven, or a large-scale sculpture of a grenade with drawers, which is a jewelry case. These ironic settings also question the elements of violence in everyday objects, instead of making them more functional, they become outrageous concoctions. Thus, the joke is on the object and the perpetrator or consumer.
Los Carpinteros (Cuba, collective consisting of Marco Castillo, b. 1971; Dagoberto Rodríguez, b. 1969; and Alexandre Arrechea, b. 1970)
A Plan for a Summer House / Plano de casa de verano, 2002
watercolor on paper, Gift from the Collection of Geoffrey Beaumont, M.2009.099
Tunga (Brazil, b. 1952)
Cups for Argamenon’s Mask, 1995
aluminum, copper and brass plate
Gift of Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson, M.2009.096