Exhibition catalog for “Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty.” As Fuller marked its 50-year anniversary in 2019, it turned to gold to commemorate this milestone with “Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty” in its Stone and Barstow galleries. This invitational project explores the storied traditions, contemporary interpretations, skillful applications, and conceptual rigor of gold as an artistic material, while investigating the multitude of cultural, material, and sociopolitical associations. For the 57 selected artists, gold remains central to their work as they delve far deeper than embellishment or decorative effect. This landmark exhibition celebrates the museum’s rich past as it plans for its future—and shines a light on all things golden.
The exhibition was co-curated by Fuller Craft Museum Chief Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Beth McLaughlin and Suzanne Ramljak, an art historian, writer, curator, and former editor of “Metalsmith” magazine. Among the exhibition themes explored are avarice, vanity, consumption, environmental consequences, power, divinity, cultural and social measures, alchemy, repair/kintsugi, artifice, transformation, and the body. Exhibited works include craft media as well as fine art mediums, fully reflecting Fuller Craft’s dual histories as both a fine art institution and a craft museum.