-Daily Dime Piggy Bank (registering)- still bank c. 1949

The Kalon Manufacturing Corp. made this tin-printed piggy bank, we don't know when exactly, but you can see its age in the patina. The colors are adorable and faded, the pig's head is fleshy pink against the off-white of the tin. There's something really charming about how this object was made to look like folk art, with its rough edges and daisy motifs. It's also about labor, and the labor of saving, the daily dime. The pig's face is kind of grotesque, a reminder that we are not that far from being piggies ourselves. The black hole of its mouth looks like a slot for coins. Or an absence. This bank reminds me of some of the early pop artists, like Claes Oldenburg, who took everyday objects and blew them up to an enormous scale. Both Oldenburg and the anonymous artists behind this piggy bank were interested in how objects shape our desires and our sense of ourselves.