Various places of origin
Plastic, metal, wood, and colors
Various lenders
Since our building is new, our Operations, Visitor Services, and Graphics departments have been researching signage options. This small exhibition of 14 signs presents those that our cross-departmental working team felt would be most suitable for our institution.
Below is a list of what the signs signify, as well as the original source.
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USA
Mixed organic materials, including sugar, butter, flour, and colors
Via cake wrecks
According to the original owner of this unique object, an image of a man playing golf was submitted on a flash drive to a cake shop. That image was, however, not used, as the following dialogue ensued:
“Hey, Jill, what am I putting on this cake?”
“Oh, check the counter; I left the jump drive out for you there.”
[calling from the back room] “Really? This is what they want on the cake?”
“Yeah, the customer just brought it in.”
“Okey dokey!”
MoFo is pleased to have acquired this unusual flash cake for our permanent collection. It will be on display briefly as our conservators feel an urgent need to stabilize the object against data loss.
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It’s Hard, by Thomas Christensen, 2009
Digital image, black and white pixels
Lent by the artist
As the USA prepares to inaugurate a new president, we at the Museum of Folly are preparing to add contributions from the outgoing executive to our Hall of Quotations. This has been a difficult assignment for our curators because there is so much material to work with. Our new building is ample, but its space is not unlimited.
This president has been so creative with language that at times he seems to challenge the very concept of communication. And this is clearly by intent. As he noted in a speech in Beaverton, Oregon, on Aug. 13, 2004, “I hope you leave here and walk out and say, ‘What did he say?’”
Language has been a constant concern of the president. As he noted on Nov. 1, 2006, “Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words.” Which, no doubt, is why he was heard to inform British Prime Minister Tony Blair that “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.”
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The museum’s Publications department is always after the curators to liven up their writing for our membership magazine. Avoid dull, plodding openings, they urge — instead, find a lively hook. In journalism this is called the “lede” — it’s spelled that way to avoide confusion with “lead” as in “leading” and “lead type.”
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By Thomas Christensen, based on historical photos by Nadar and Etienne Carjat
Digital image, colored pixels
Via the Sleep of Reason
This image of nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) is part of a set of contemporary hagioagraphic portraits of historical figures that occupies a wing in MoFo’s historical galleries. Known among MoFo staff as St. Stupid’s Corridor, the wing is often recommended to visitors who are agonized by convulsions of laughter, because of its sobering effects.
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Mofo Store Manager Kenneth Whirlow is pleased to announce the acquisition of a special addition to our store’s rare books selection. The book is a rare signed first edition of Plato’s Republic. Whirlow (acting on a tip from famous book scout Nico) was able to acquire the book from EBay of all places; the original listing follows:
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Indonesia, Tegal, Central Java
Wood, cloth, and mixed media
via Asian Art Museum; From the Mimi and John Herbert Collection
Jesters or clowns are among the most popular figures in the folk puppet traditions of Java, Indonesia. The rod puppets (wanage golek) — not to be confused with the more aristocratic shadow puppets (wayang kulit) — are made of brightly painted, carved wood, and are often dressed in batik clothing and bedecked with sequins and beads.
New York City (publisher), Hong Kong (printer)
Fragment of a page from a book; ink and colors on paper
Via the New York Times
The Museum of Folly was, regrettably, unable to purchase the original painting by Pablo Picasso of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). This reproduction was torn out of an art history textbook.
David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago, has proposed an exquisitely stupid method of determining the greatest artworks of the twentieth century. He simply counts how often a work is reproduced in textbooks. “Quantification,” Galenson complains, “has been almost totally absent from art history.” Using this method, Galenson has definitively determined that the top five most important artworks of the twentieth century, in order, are:
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Lake George, Minnesota
Digital photograph; colored pixels
Via Mail Online
This unfortunate Ursus arctos recalls the fictional bear of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh series, who got his head stuck in a honey jar.
While Mr. Milne’s Pooh was, admittedly, a bear of very little brain, our curators do not feel that there is a compelling reason to make a space for him in our already crowded MoFo galleries. Rather, the fools this image evokes are the Lake George police, who shot and killed the bear out of a conern for public safety.
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click for larger view
