Frame size: 42.8 x 37.6 x 3.0 cm,
Image size: 25.4 x 20.3 cm
The Mohole Flower sketches refer to the Project Mohole, an American Cold War project that started in 1957 and aborted in 1966. Project Mohole was an attempt in the early 1960s to drill through the Earth's crust into the Mohorovičić discontinuity, and to provide an Earth science complement to the high-profile Space Race. The sketches also led to Medalla's creation of animated mixed media sculptures of the same title. Medalla’s hypothetical, compulsive project was meant to be planted at the center of the earth in order to resurface “with rolling petals like the crest of a tidal wave reaching the shore”, in different shapes and at different locations across the globe. Medalla had referenced the Mohole flower as early as 1965, when he wrote about it in his “MMMMMM …Manifesto”, published in the Signals news bulletin. Mohole Flower (Sketch for a Cosmic Propulsion for a Flower Sculpture in the Centre of the World) (1966) was originally produced as part of a group exhibition at the original Signals Gallery in London in 1966. The gallery closed later that year. Mohole Flower (1967) also stems from this seminal period, but was produced a year after Signals Gallery closed. These drawings are rare relics that document Medalla’s ongoing, highly unachievable yet deeply poetic and enduring research project: they each in their unique way document the importance of process and experimentation in the art making process, especially against any real or archived endpoint. The abstract works on paper embody the spirit and energy of Medalla's prolific yet highly unnoticed work from this period of his career.
