JAN 22–MAR 15, 2020
KARI MARBOE:
DUPLICATING DANIEL
Kari Marboe
Offprint: Duplicating Daniel Series, 2018
Artist’s initial 3D printed ceramic prototypes of duplicates of the original Daniel Rhodes sculpture.
3D Print
Duplicating Daniel, a visual inquiry from ceramicist and sleuth Kari Marboe into a vanished artwork, from MCAM’s permanent collection, by clay master Daniel Rhodes.
Pursuing a web of living and archival leads, Marboe attempts to recreate the lost sculpture from a vintage photocopy, an accession number, artist interviews, and research. The exhibition plays with the history of ceramics, the act of translation, and the imbedded failure of trying to make, or be, an exact copy of something else.
Kari Marboe
Dead Ringer: Duplicating Daniel Series, 2018
Photocopy of missing Daniel Rhodes sculpture, BMix with nylon fiber (fired). Ceramic sketch of the original Daniel Rhodes sculpture.
Mills College Art Museum has the largest permanent art collection of any liberal arts college on the West Coast, with records for over 13,000 objects in its storage facilities. In a file card box labeled, “Lost, Stolen, Deaccessioned” the Rhodes sculpture is listed as ‘missing’; the museum is unsure of the circumstances of its disappearance. The only trace of this sculpture is its accession date (1975, gift of the artist) and a murky black and white Xerox of a photo of the sculpture. Rhodes is the author of Clay and Glazes for the Potterem>, a highly relied upon textbook found on the bookshelves of most ceramics classes. Rhodes taught ceramics at Alfred University for 25 years and published six books on technical ceramics. Considering his contributions to the field, Marboe thought it only right to try to reproduce the sculpture for the collection.
As a result of her efforts, Marboe has amassed a growing collection of ‘replicas’ of Daniel Rhodes’ sculpture manifest as hand built objects, 3-D printed models, color studies, written accounts, and other renditions. Due to the embedded failure in approximation, interpretation, and the hand of a maker, we cannot be sure which of these new sculptures is the truest copy of Daniel’s work.
Marboe will continue to replicate the original sculpture until the Director and staff of Mills College Art Museum agree that one version is convincing enough to be placed back into the permanent collection. Marboe foresees that the story of the duplicate will also be lost and misremembered until eventually everyone believes the stand-in to be the original object documented in the black and white photocopy. When this missing link is replaced, Duplicating Daniel will be complete.
This project is supported by Mills College Art Museum and the Department of Museum Records & Research, which has collaborated with Marboe and provided access to archival information about this particular Daniel Rhodes sculpture. A detailed record of Marboe’s process and contribution to the collection will be preserved in the Museum Records & Research archives and object files.
Kari Marboe: Duplicating Daniel is supported through the generosity of the Agnes Cowles Bourne Fund for Special Exhibitions
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kari Marboe is a Bay Area artist and Assistant Professor at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. She holds a MFA from the University of California, Berkeley and a BFA from California College of the Arts. Marboe’s research-based, ceramic works have been presented at 500 Capp Street/Southern Exposure, CA; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, CA; The Museum of Craft and Design, CA; Wave Pool Gallery, OH; A-B Projects, CA; Greenwich House Pottery, NY; and the Waffle Shop Billboard, PA.
