Death Shrine 2
Date1972 - 77
Label TextThis work is part of Los Angeles–based artist Ken Price’s broader series Happy’s Curios. Named for his wife, Happy, the project was partly inspired by curio shops and the Mexican shrines and roadside pottery shops found on both sides of the border. Drawing attention to the hierarchies between fine art and folk art—often made by unnamed artists, artists of color, or those working in craft traditions—Price began to create identical replicas of utilitarian objects, including ceramic cups, dinnerware, and shrine figures, which he planned to sell in a functional store within a museum context. Though the final commercial element was never realized, Price’s project incisively critiqued the ways in which “craft” is transformed, through the hand of a named artist and the sanctifying space of a museum, into “art” and back again.
Object number88.15
Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ken Price: Happy's Curios, April 4 - July 2, 1978
Rockford, Illinois, Rockford College, Putting Pottery in Perspective: Past, Present & Future, March 2 - April 22, 1990 (Atlanta, Georgia, High Museum at Georgia-Pacific Center, August 17 - October 26, 1990; Appleton, Wisconsin, Lawrence University, January 11 - February 24, 1991; University Art Museum, Arizona State University, Matthews Center, March 10 - April 28, 1991).
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Poke in the Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture, June 21 - September 2, 2024.Credit LineGift of Miani Johnson, Willard Gallery, NY
Dimensions84 x 55 x 48 in. (213.4 x 139.7 x 121.9 cm)
MediumWood, ceramic, ribbon, lace, enamel, Masonite, plastic flowers
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