KRESS CORNER with DONOR, 2015
Allentown Museum of Art
Jonsara Ruth & Lorella Di Cintio
Gypsum Wallboard, Gold Foil, Punchmarks, Incisions
The golden ground and punchmarked halos in the 14th century paintings of the Samuel H. Kress Collection drew us to imagine the paintings in their original context. Placed in a dark interior of an early renaissance nun’s cell or convent’s chapel, the paintings reflected light and illuminated the space around them. From the golden interior landscape of this painting we create a spatial version of a ‘mystic’ interior. This interior is in response to the context of the iconic corner window designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown Associates for the Allentown Art Museum. The installation is an ‘architectonic marriage’ of the painting’s luminescent quality and the museum architecture. A cubic volume of reflected light. Two walls are corner windows pointing due North on the second floor of the museum. The other two walls are fabricated panels reflecting the painting and the daylight of Allentown. Each quadrant reflects something of ‘The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with Donor.’ The golden interior space glows and invites a different kind of looking.
