Return to the White Cube

re:View closed this past Saturday, and on Monday de-installation began.  Myself and the other four students joined the preparators and curator of the museum and helped to take it all down.  Jayme took down her wall text, making sure to save the photos of “Tom,” Raylene was busy putting many many paintings back into real storage, David hoarded all of his wall quotes, wall text, and labels, Lauren ejected her DVD…Actually, Lauren did a lot more than that, and was pretty fierce when it came to wielding a drill; she helped to removed the mountings that the Jinks Room murals had been attached to.

I was charged with the task of removing my “blueprint” from the Center Gallery’s floor.  What had taken two semesters to research, develop and execute, was removed and gone within five minutes.  The painted plastic sheets were ripped off the floor and were crumpled into a big heap.

 

Taking down our individual projects wasn’t the only thing that needed to be done; we also took down all of the wall text from re:View and from Four Rooms and a View, and also took down our big blue title.

 

What did we do with all of this trash?  Jayme turned it into a Lady-Gaga-inspired outfit, that she plans on wearing out this weekend in Hollywood.—Just kidding.  After prancing around with all the discarded plastic Jayme tossed it.

Some people asked me if I was going to try and save any of the silhouettes, m response was that my project was really about expanding the known knowledge about the murals.  All of the expanded research will be added to the museums file, and will be preserved there.  So saving the plastic sheets wasn’t really a priority of the project for me, so much as a creative way to display my research.

The museum galleries have once again been returned to the white boxes.  The next thing to go on display in the Fisher is the SOFA show, which will showcase works from students in the Roski School of Fine Art.  However one things remains from re:View, and will stay on view until fall.  Susan Silton’s work, which was commissioned for re:View still adorns the facade of the Fisher.  It reminds us, the student-curators of our project, and welcomes visitors into the museum, and asks them to question what they are seeing.

- Francisco Rosas

Reconstruct: Filling in the Missing Pieces

The Jinks Room mural segments in the Fisher Museum’s collection are only six of the original nine that made up the cycle. The three other segments have remained with the family that donated the segments to USC. Lucky for me some of those mural segments are still in the area.

I was put in touch with Mrs. Mary Regis, the daughter of Lowry B. McCaslin the original donor of the Jinks Room murals to the Fisher Museum. Mrs. Regis is conveniently located in Pasadena, just a short trip north from USC. Never having visited a museum donor before, I was feeling nervous about making a good impression on her. It turns out there was no reason to be nervous; Mrs. Regis invited me very warmly into her home and spoke with me enthusiastically about Anoakia and the Jinks Room.

There on the wall of Mrs. Regis’s sitting room were two Jinks Room segments. One had a single figure of a sinister-looking jester. The other had a jester, a leprechaun and a fairy. This segment was fascinating because the cover for the lightswitches of the room was still attached to it—a reminder that these mural segments were once in a functional room of an estate. And low and behold along with the switch cover, Mrs. Regis also had original light fixtures from the Jinks Room, which were displayed alongside the mural segments.

It turns out that Maynard Dixon not only painted the murals in the Jinks Room (as well as a mural cycle feature Native Americans now in the California State Library), but also designed light fixtures for this room and throughout the entire Anoakia estate! Mrs. Regis even had a book of Dixon’s original designs for the fixtures with directions for fabricated by Tiffany and Co. Mrs. Regis said Dixon even designed doorknobs for the Jinks Room that had little jester heads on them!


Something that Mrs. Regis did not have in her house was the last mural segment. This segment is with Mrs. Regis’s sister. Luckily the museum had photos of this last segment on file so that we could develop a silhouette of this segment.

Going through the museum’s files on the Jinks Room I found an archive photograph of the last mural segment in its original setting. The lone figure of a jester was situated between a doorway and a large craftsman style fireplace. Now I have images of all the mural segments and can begin to reconstruct the Jinks Room.

Next week’s update will be on the creation of the silhouettes, which will be featured in the Reconstruct portion of the intervention.

- Francisco Rosas

Reconstruct: Part One

The USC Fisher Museum of Art has in its collection a mural cycle painted by the Californian artist Maynard Dixon, called the Jinks Room. The Fisher Museum has six of the original nine segments; the other three segments have remained with the donor family.

For the portion of the intervention re:View called reconstruct, all nine mural segments needed to be studied. Reconstruct aims to recreate the original architectural space of the Jinks Room. The permanent collection exhibition happening right now at Fisher is Four Rooms and a View, which presents the Jinks Room murals with only the six mural segments in the Fisher Collection.

Below is a video of the installation of the Jinks Room murals in Four Rooms and A View.



The mural segments in the Fisher’s collection (the ones in the video) were:

Procession with Couples
Feast with a Friar
Dance with the Fairy Queen
Monk with a Leprechaun and a Jester
Procession with Reluctant Monk
Reluctant Cat

This means I need to track down the three unknown segments.

- Francisco Rosas