The Mom Call

Brian Jungen

2011

Organic Chair by Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames, American elk hide, tarred twine, steel, granite

Seattle Art Museum

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.” Gif