Mining the Museum

In our installation, we would start with the Grand Salon, found on the second floor of the Minneapolis Institute of Art as a piece of the installation, but also as the base and setting for the other pieces we intend to add to the installation. The original assumption of the Salon is a feeling that the room in characteristically elegant and richly colored and decorated- to hold social gatherings for wealthy people in 1730.

In the corner of the room, to the right of the fireplace, the next piece of our installation would stand, the Funerary Torch found on the third floor with the European art dating from the 1600s. This second piece connects visually to the Salon because it also is beautifully decorated and painted gold. The original meaning behind the torch is the assumption that it was created for the specific purpose of proclaiming and honoring the death of an

individual. But in our installation, juxtaposed against the splendor of the Salon, would add a melancholy tone to the room. It would still feel like a part of the room, subtle-looking in the corner of the room so not to be the central focus, yet ominous because the skeletal angel is grinning out on the space.

The final piece of the installation would be the Veiled Lady sculpture by Raffaelo Monti in 1860, found on the third floor of the museum. She would be placed on centrally on the mantle. The original meaning behind this work expresses beauty through the extremely well executed technique on the veil. In our installation, the piece would gain a different meaning because, along with the other two pieces, it would add a somber yet elegant effect because the woman is beautiful but masked in a sheer veil with her head tilted downwards. It would give the installation another faucet of assumption because it's placement on the mantle would face a viewer glancing at themselves in the mirror behind the sculpture, demanding the viewer's attention. In this way, the viewer, assumed to be a wealthy and/or powerful individual, also watched by the angel of death to his right, would feel a certain amount of uneasiness. The woman would be a secondary reflection, maybe a reflection of the same viewer's luxury and vanity (represented by the flowers and veil) and at the same time, a reflection of the loneliness and bareness found in death after a life filled with riches.

By: Addie and Diedre

Section A