Drawing on the iconic form of the Taj Mahal in India, Rina Banerjee’s translucent sculpture subverts typical assumptions about the monument: its costly materials and elegant marble façades, its sense of history and permanence, and its fixed location. In contrast, Banerjee’s palace consists of a frame of steel and copper wrapped in a skin of pink cellophane—a mass-produced material designed for the disposable consumer culture of the twenty-first century. The tentlike structure is suspended from the ceiling and floats above the ground. In the center of the cavernous space are relics of colonialism including an antique Anglo-Indian Bombay chair juxtaposed with a chandelier assembled from a variety of expendable goods—pink foam balls, plastic beads, synthetic materials, and fake birds. The piece encapsulates Banerjee’s working method, combining found objects with consumer products picked up from markets around her home in New York City.
Banerjee (b. 1963) received her master’s in fine art (painting) from the Yale School of Art in 1995. This will be the first display of Take me, take me, take me . . .to the Palace of love at the YCBA since the museum acquired it in 2023.
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Rina Banerjee, Take me, take me, take me . . . to the Palace of love, 2003, plastic, antique Anglo-Indian Bombay dark wood chair, steel and copper framework, floral picks, foam balls, cowrie shells, quilting pins, red colored moss, antique stone globe, glass, synthetic fabric, shells, fake birds, Yale Center for British Art, Purchased through the generosity of Allison K. and Larry Berg; Laura and James Duncan, Yale BA 1975; Adam R. Rose, Yale BA 1981 and Peter R. McQuillan; and Yale University Art Gallery, Heinz Family Endowed Fund © The Artist. Image: Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, October 27, 2018 – March 31, 2019. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
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