Feeling Blue: Mingei Awarded $200K Grant for Upcoming ‘Blue Gold’ Exhibition

The Getty Foundation has awarded Mingei International Museum a $200,000 grant for the upcoming exhibition, “Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo.”

The show is among more than 50 exhibitions and programs being presented as part of Pacific Standard Time, which is set to include dozens of cultural, scientific and community organizations in the coming year.

The exhibition at the Balboa Park museum presents indigo – a tropical plant once widely cultivated as a source of dark blue dye – as a manifestation of art and science.

“’Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo’ will be truly interdisciplinary, combining art, science and history in unprecedented ways to explore this dye’s rich and complex past and present,” said the exhibition’s guest co-curator, Barbara Hanson Forsyth.

“Blue Gold” combines science, craft and history to explore indigo’s past and present, including the unpleasant realities of its growth and manufacture, from hard labor and pollution to its association with colonialism and slavery.

The exhibition highlights the roles of botany, chemistry, medicine, ecology and economics in indigo cultivation. Contemporary craftspeople and artists working with indigo, such as Laura Kina and Porfirio Gutierrez, address questions about the sustainability of indigo, its problematic legacy and technological alternatives to manual processing.

Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, “PST ART: Art & Science Collide,” the regional event will explore the intersections of art and science, both past and present.

“Art & Science Collide” follows “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA,” from September 2017 to January 2018), which presented an examination of Latin American and Latinx art. PST ART is a Getty initiative.