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This week
Urban Glass

Viewing: Seen

Img 3430 Min
Inna Babaeva, Men O’war, 2017, glass, H 36. W 36, D 36 in. courtesy: sarah thaw

Friday July 28, 2017 | by Sarah Thaw

SEEN: A real estate company turns unlikely spaces into showcases for contemporary art
FILED UNDER: Architecture, Exhibition, On the street, Public Art, Seen
Contemporary art is on display in unexpected spaces within New York City and beyond thanks to the Art-in-Buildings program, an initiative by real-estate company Time Equities, Inc. that is transforming windows into non-traditional exhibition spaces. The program was founded in 2001 by Time Equities, Inc. CEO Francis Greenburger, who, after walking into an empty lobby in one of his downtown Manhattan properties, decided that the space would be a perfect place to display art. Since that initial idea, the concept has grown to include building fronts in many different sites -- from the Financial District and other areas in New York City, to buildings across the United States and in three different countries -- and over 110 artists have been featured in its rotating exhibitions.Currently on view at the program's West 10th Window, a street-level storefront window located in Manhattan’s West Village that has featured unique artists in short-term exhibitions since 2012 is an installation by Ukraine-born, New York-based artist Inna Babaeva, who frequently employs glass in her work (Disclosure: The work was fabricated at the studios of UrbanGlass, the nonprofit arts center that published the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet as well as the print publication GLASS.). Eliana Blechman, the curatorial assistant and exhibitions coordinator of Time Equities’ Art-in-Buildings program, said that said she and her fellow curators “scour the internet, galleries and magazines” for unique artists to invite to display their work in the space.

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Raging
Baptiste Debombourg, Contextual installation in laminated glass 33/1 from "Raging Dreams", 2017. broken windows. courtesy: artist.

Wednesday June 21, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

Channeling collective unease, Baptiste Debombourg shatters glass in three European exhibitions
FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Seen
For the past decade, French artist, Baptiste Debombourg, has exploited the fragility of glass to explore the “evidence of humanity" out of scenes of apparent wreckage, as GLASS Quarterly contributing editor Victoria Josslin put it in a Fall 2015 (GLASS #140) profile of the artist. And Debombourg’s three recent exhibitions prove just as gasp-inducing as their predecessors. “RAGING DREAMS—over the horizon” by Debombourg opened May 19 at Gallery S12 in Bergen, Norway to celebrate the gallery’s 10th anniversary. According to the S12 event announcement, energy and the power of dreams are guiding motifs in the installation, composed mostly of laminated broken glass. Like the artist’s previous works, “RAGING DREAMS” references the destructive power of natural forces with large, immersive and engulfing installations that creep from the gallery walls to its floors with edges that resemble a breaking wave. 

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Doreen Garner1
Doreen Garner, Big Pussy (From the Back), 2015. Glass, polyester fiber, Swarovski crystals and pearls, hair weave, teddy bear eyes, silicone, electrical parts, condoms, latex, acrylic, rubber, glitter, screws. H 16 W 23 D 16 in. photo: lindsay hargrave

Wednesday June 7, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

SEEN: Doreen Garner deploys glass as abstracted organs in inquiry into abusive medical research
FILED UNDER: Exhibition, Image Gallery, New Work, Seen
Doreen Garner's exhibition "Doctor's Hours," on view in New York City gallery through June 18, 2017, is an assemblage of drawings, video, and sculptural specimens that blend revulsion and attraction to provoke inquiry into atrocities inflicted on African American research subjects in the name of science. Most visceral is the response to the eerily intestinal yet abstract creations made from careful combinations of petroleum jelly-smeared glass, silicone, crystals, human hair, condoms and glitter, perched on shelves at nearly eye-level, spot-lit in the darkened pop-up gallery space on New York City's Lower East Side. Garner, who is often present in the gallery space, plays the role of both artist and surgeon as she invites her audience to become literally one with her art by receiving an actual tattoo, which she will administer either by appointment or for those inspired by their walk-in visit.

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Paracosm Swenson Eml
Brett Swenson, Standards of Measurement, 1 Liter (detail), 2016. Erlenmeyer flask, obsidian, heat, borosilicate glass shelf. H 10, W 10, D 9 inches. courtesy: norte maar.

Friday October 7, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

SEEN: Independent exhibition in Brooklyn celebrates visions of glass worlds by a new generation
FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Seen
"Paracosm" is a technical term for an imaginary world. The most famous examples are literary, like J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth or C.S. Lewis's Narnia; but in the visual arts, narrative works are often set in manufactured worlds. In an independently organized exhibition in Brooklyn, New York, the work of six experimental artists has been organized into “Paracosm: new worlds in glass,” which showcases the capacity of glass art to provide a transporting experience in a wide range of works, all with a conceptual foundation. Brooklyn’s Norte Maar, a nonprofit focused on “connecting emerging artistic communities and uniting cultural forces to foster artistic expression and raise the imaginative energy in us all,” is the setting for this fanciful exhibition, which runs through October 23, 2016.

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Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, a glossy art magazine published four times a year by UrbanGlass has provided a critical context to the most important artwork being done in the medium of glass for more than 40 years.