The Prize

One of the first pieces that I really liked at El Museo del Barrio was a piece called The Prize, or in Spanish, El Premio. The Prize was created in 2007 by artist Hew Locke. Locke is a British artist of British and Guyanese descent.

The actual object itself is not too large, a little over two feet in height and a little over a foot in width in my estimation. For the main body of the piece, he uses golden pieces to mimic the coloring of a trophy. Several of the pieces are lion heads and circular pieces with a sort of face on them while others say ‘Get Well’. There are some plastic green plant fronds and different plastic colored flowers: pink and yellow. There is even a wand, some tinsel with stars on it, and several strings of small golden beads that wrap around the entire piece.

I thought this was appealing because it was just mix of everything. It had bits and pieces of objects that seemed to be scraps. It reminds me of the left over pieces and scraps that we place in the art bin for future use. I thought it was cool how Locke used a bunch of seemingly unrelated objects and put them together into one cohesive piece that, for me, makes sense. I also thought it was cool how he made flat pieces come alive into a three dimensional object. For me, the title also shows how we may “prize” the bits and pieces in our lives, the small things that other people may not think are important but are important to us. The fact that one can make things from little scraps and bits and pieces, things that we may even “prize” and cherish.

I think this piece is playful in that it uses different things like flowers and beads and a wand even, to make something whole. I think it shows us how seemingly unrelated things can be made into something beautiful. It shows how bits and pieces that one would normally throw away can come together to make something unique. Overall, I think this piece begs the question, what can one make from leftovers?