[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”3612″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”50px”][vc_column_text]SPOT ON….. James Rosenquist

CALYX KRATER TRASH CAN, 1976

eighteen karat gold with black patina
4 in x 3 in

James Rosenquist (born 1933) created this series of gold trash cans after learning that Metropolitan Museum of Art had deacquisitioned significant twentieth-century works of art from its permanent collection in order to purchase the Sarpedon Krater, an ancient Greek calyx krater by the famed painter Euphronios for the then record price of one million dollars. Rosenquist’s message on the absurdity of the action was eightened when the vase was returned to the Italien government in 2008 after it was discovered that it had been looted from a necropolis near Rome. Rosenquist explained:

“The ridiculousness of the idea of selling a Modigliani and a Soutine weighted on my mind, and while I was brooding about it, my friend Ronnie Westerfield took some peyote and had a dream about Greek drawings on a garbage can. I thought, I know what I’m going to do, I’m going to make miniature Calyx Kraters as garbage cans and make them out of solid gold.”

After beginning with sheet gold cup up into the shapes of small garbage cans, Rosenquist turned to Donald Saff of the University of South Florida’s Graphicstudio, with whom he had first collaborated on a print series, Cold Light Suite,  to etch the gold using aqua regia. The sides of the cans were etched with the calyx crater’s famous scenes from the Trojan Wars, and striations in the metal were added so that the cans would resemble actual carbage cans. After the cans were patinated to look dirty and old, they were fitted with small gold chains connecting the cans to the lid.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”none” el_class=”with-link”]    back to ART DIARY[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]