The Total Amount, 2003–2004
double-glass laminate with translucent Cibachrome; steel wall structure; 2 steel counters with 72 cardboard pigment boxes
114 x 82,5 x 45 cm 113,3 x 273 x 93,3 cm 120 x 79,8 x 1,7 cm
The Total Amount by Pieter Laurens Mol (1946, The Netherlands) exhibits the contents of a 100-year-old painter's case. Lying in a specially-crafted glass cabinet of the old type are 72 types of raw pigments in beautiful colors and of different finenesses. The photo above the display case shows the artist himself, in reverse video, hanging uneasily over his material. In a text about this work, Mol himself writes of "the painter who sees better than anyone else how enchanting color can be". This work thus won a place in the heart of the AkzoNobel art collection. Pieter Laurens Mol is one of the first Dutch artists to have secured a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during his own lifetime.
