The exhibition was funded in part by Jo Bobbie MacConnell, Guy Showly, The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture and The County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program.
Tijuana’s Cultural Center (CECUT) and Mingei International are partnering on a major exhibition at CECUT, featuring more than 500 of the finest objects in the Museum’s renowned collection of international folk art. This will be the first time in its 33-year history that Mingei International Museum will present an international exhibition.
The exhibition will offer the opportunity to see objects that are among the highest expressions of human creativity, arising from daily life in cultures around the world. Each viewer will be encouraged to discover beauty in the unexpected—to connect with the makers of the objects and with their skill, imagination, freshness of expression and humanity. Folk art from all over the world will be featured, including from Mingei International’s Mexican collection, the Museum’s largest.
Mingei International Museum collects, preserves and exhibits art of the people from all cultures of the world, including objects by anonymous ancient craftsmen, traditional cultures of the past and present and craft artists of today. _Mingei – The Beauty of Use_ will capture and present the essence of the Museum’s collection, which now includes over 21,000 objects from 141 countries. `A Book of the same name accompanied the exhibit. On May 16 and June 27, 2012 the museum coordinated an excursion to Tijuana’s cultural center (CECUT) for the exhibition of pieces from Mingei’s permanent collection.