Still Life Props from Painting Smoking Eating

Reniel Del Rosario

The Museum of Found Objects (MOFO), 2023

16' x 12'

Presented by Catharine Clark Gallery, Booth C05


Filipino born artist Reniel Del Rosario created bootlegs of artwork within online museum collections and art catalogues for a fake museum called “The Museum of Found Objects,” (MOFO for short), from a previous artist residency. He mislabelled (and sometimes mishandled) each and every object on the wall labels to represent something other than what it was intended to be. All this is based on internal museum issues with miscategorizing artwork, misattributing artists, displaying work wrong (or weird and heirarchical), misalignment of art history and the art/artist, diminishing work due to the maker, work being lost or broken while in storage or over time, etc.

Reniel Del Rosario (born Iba, Philippines) is an artist who works primarily in ceramics. His practice is often paired with humor and installation with finished works often ending in large numbers of ceramic objects made to reference, look like, and critique various already-existing objects from history, art history, and pop culture in imperfect copies. His projects have ranged from mimicking businesses to reimagining lost cultural artifacts to replicating the mundane and banal in alternative and ‘odd’ compositions. Throughout all his work, Reniel aims to entertain and bewilder audiences with the fusion of familiarity and absurdity.  Learn more here.

Image courtesy of the artist.