-Koko Nut [sic] Penny Bank- still bank c. 20th century

Curator: Well, I must say, there’s a whimsical quality to this so-called "-Koko Nut [sic] Penny Bank-" created sometime in the 20th century. The Minneapolis Institute of Art houses this playful found-object sculpture, comprised mainly of wood. What is your first take, Editor? Editor: Delightfully bizarre! It's like a startled coconut transformed into a creature, or some kind of bewildered piggy bank robot with that little wooden snout poking out. Primitive, slightly humorous and makes me strangely sympathetic to spare change. Curator: That’s fascinating. It is essentially a humble penny bank, yet it is a repository of cultural memory. The coconut shell itself whispers tales of trade routes, colonial histories, and perhaps even exotic fantasies. Notice the inscription around the base of the bank—"Koko Nutt Penny Bank". How do you interpret it? Editor: Inscriptions have that effect on me... Makes me wanna find that original workshop and rummage around. That name looks rather...off. Maybe a case of charming folk art, or something with much darker cultural undertones, given when this was made and racial stereotypes being deployed at the time. The “primitive” aspect makes me wonder—in ways that aren't entirely joyful. What I will give it credit for is its form and the sort of material transformation through a rudimentary act. A coconut shell into a bank! A metaphor perhaps about hiding treasure within simplicity? Curator: Precisely, it embodies layers. This object straddles that space, invoking memories of both resourcefulness and the troubling shadows of racial caricature. The very simplicity of it demands a closer examination, asking us to acknowledge the complexities embedded in its making and its time. It makes us examine whether humor gives it a pass on harmful symbolism... Editor: So what remains, ultimately, in this piece is less its worth and more the web of significance it has accrued—it may still elicit uncomfortable laughter in some quarters. I like to imagine all the hands that touched it, the pennies it guarded and the childhood dreams associated. What started as a goofy thingamajig holds so much! Curator: Exactly, Editor. It encapsulates both the potential for art to be an unpretentious vessel and the potency it contains—cultural histories, material ingenuity and symbolic darkness too.