SAN DIEGO, CA.- After a three-year closure for a transformational renovation, Mingei International Museum will reopen September 3, 2021, with a dynamic slate of exhibitions, commissioned artworks and public programs. Mingei’s inaugural exhibitions will be Global Spirit—Folk Art from the Ted Cohen Collection and Humble Spirit / Priceless Art, both drawn from the Museum’s notable collection of folk art, craft and design from around the world.

Located in San Diego’s historic Balboa Park, one of the most significant cultural locations in the American West, Mingei International Museum’s home is a 1915 Spanish Colonial building (reconstructed 1996), known as the “House of Charm.” The grand reopening will reveal a compelling new Museum of over 50,000 square feet. Enhancements include adding 10,000 square feet to exhibition and programming space and creating a new theater, education center, bistro, store and coffee bar.

In 2016, Mingei commissioned San Diego-based, nationally recognized architect Jennifer Luce, Founder and Principal of LUCE et studio, to lead a renovation and expansion project focused on accessibility, functionality and full integration of Mingei’s mission-based commitment to art, craft and design throughout the building. After two years of design, planning and fundraising, the Museum closed for construction in September 2018.

“As an institution, we approached this project as a combination of three essential and interrelated components connected to our mission: Access, Art and Architecture,” said Director and CEO Rob Sidner. “We are confident that the new Mingei will be a cultural anchor in Balboa Park and a source of inspiration for the San Diego region and our national and international visitors.”

The reopening exhibitions exemplify Mingei’s mission of presenting everyday art objects from around the world. GLOBAL SPIRIT showcases folk art from over 20 countries, highlighting a donation to the Museum by the Oakland-based collector and exhibition designer Ted Cohen. HUMBLE SPIRIT / PRICELESS ART, curated by Sidner, shines a light on objects that are made from the humblest of materials yet are full of beauty and vitality.

“For over 40 years, Mingei International Museum has celebrated and exhibited local artists, craftspeople and designers, supporting the notion that design and creativity contribute to the betterment of everyone's life,” said Board Chair Courtenay McGowen. “Our reopening exhibitions celebrate the spirit and artistry of everyday objects, something that feels even more relevant after so much time at home.”

Large-scale icons of Mingei’s collection will also return home, with Niki de Saint Phalle’s beloved mosaic sculpture Nikigator once again welcoming in visitors from Balboa Park. New, site-specific commissions—by Petra Blaisse, Claudy Jongstra, Christina Kim and Jennifer Luce in collaboration with A. Zahner/Zahner Labs—will be installed throughout the building, in formal and conceptual dialogue with the architecture and collection. Selections from the permanent collection will also be on view in Mingei’s new, free Commons level in a presentation that establishes a connection between the museum’s roots in the early-20th-century Japanese mingei movement and its collecting mission around the concept of “art of the people.”




The September 3 reopening kicks off a month of celebratory activities and programs that include the second annual San Diego Design Week; hands-on art making activities; performances in the galleries and theater; building and exhibition tours and artist lectures. Entry into the Museum Labor Day weekend, Friday, September 3 through Monday, September 6, will be free for all.

ART

GLOBAL SPIRIT—Folk Art from the Ted Cohen Collection features over 200 works, including handcrafted masks, puppets, dolls, instruments and baskets, as well as unexpected objects such as hat boxes, a lunch box and a three-foot-tall elephant made from paper and bamboo. The varied materials and subject matter represent the Museum’s mission to celebrate human creativity in all forms and will delight viewers with their color, whimsy and beauty as they reveal aspects of the lives and history of people from around the world.

HUMBLE SPIRIT / PRICELESS ART features works created from everyday, found materials—clay, straw, paper, cotton, tin—that are nevertheless full of spirit, beauty and delight, upending our traditional thinking about what art is. This exhibition will include Japanese brushes, Mexican combs and kites from India, among other Museum treasures. It also honors craftspeople whose names are no longer known to us yet whose imagination, skill and creativity continue to greatly enrich our lives.

COMMISSIONED WORKS

The new Mingei features commissioned artworks by Petra Blaisse, Claudy Jongstra, Christina Kim, Sharon Stampfer and Billie Tsien. Blaisse, the founder of Inside Outside, a studio devoted to textile, landscape and exhibition design, is creating Sessions, a billowing felt and organza curtain inspired by Balboa Park’s jacaranda trees that will be installed along the 40-foot retractable glass wall in the Theater. Claudy Jongstra, known worldwide for her innovations in wool felt, has created Truth & Beauty in Black—a 30’ mural, exploring the cultural histories of indigo and black pigments, that will be installed in the new Bistro.

Kim, founder of eco-conscious Los Angeles design house dosa, has created two projects. sugi/kuruminoki is a pair of diaphanous window screens, each an abstraction of a George Nakashima drawing, for the Founders’ Gallery, home to the Museum’s iconic Nakashima table. Kim is also designing and fabricating liquid2solid—a series of flowing, hand-sewn curtains to be used in the galleries, each made from off-cut waste of Dyneema® fabric. Designer, metalsmith and artist Sharon Stampfer crafted Two thousand seven hundred twenty-two miles Hand in Hand a recessed pull on the exterior of the Founder’s Gallery door. Tsien of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects has designed three gallery benches titled, EAST|WEST, for Museum visitors to use and admire. Embedded in the surface of these long, sleek benches are a root burl, referencing the ‘root’ stools and seats of ancient Asian and African cultures.

Architect Jennifer Luce, collaborated with A. Zahner/Zahner Labs, to create two architectural installations: Suspended Refrain, a perforated metal ceiling on the Commons level echoing a player piano roll, and Hedgerow, a digitally cut, hand-turned brass picket fence that defines the new public courtyard.