The Mom Call
2011
Jungen’s drum combines a commercial version of “organic” modern design—which refers to the chair’s form, rather than its material—with a handmade object that is constructed with organic materials. Created with the help and communal knowledge of his extended family from his mother’s Dane-zaa Nation in British Columbia, the work is in part a search for identities, both personal and artistic. From New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s call for entries to a design competition in 1940, Jungen extrapolates The Mom Call—referencing his mother’s aboriginal heritage and hunting traditions while alluding to MoMA as the “mother of modern art.”
Organic Chair by Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames, American elk hide, tarred twine, steel, granite
80 1/4 x 33 x 29 1/2 in. (203.8 x 83.8 x 74.9 cm)
Gift of the Contemporary Collectors Forum
2014.34
Provenance: [Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York]; purchased by the Seattle Art Museum (funds from Contemporary Collectors Forum), December 16, 2014
Photo: Casey Kaplan Gallery
