Blanche Tilden, 2012. Necklace from solo exhibition of “wearable cities.” Glass and silver. courtesy: gallery funaki.
In the light of the recent glass fashion show in Toledo, Blanche Tilden’s July 31st opening of “wearable cities” in Melbourne’s Gallery Funaki seems especially timely. Do not assume, however, that her glass and silver necklaces that straddle the gap between couture and fine art are a product of a bandwagon mentality. Tilden has been perfecting her style of wearable art since the late 1980’s, and is only associated with the word “trend” if it’s followed by the word “setter.”
There is something about Tilden’s oeuvre that evokes the mid-century aesthetic of an imagined future that never really panned out, a la Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or those awful, ubiquitous egg shaped chairs. The essence of that movement is distilled with the finesse of an artist who steals the best parts of Modernism and re-imagines them as relevant. Tilden creates subtle, structural glass sculpture designed to accentuate, rather than encapsulate, the human. Her necklaces play with light and the trick the mind, as glass and metal buildings so often do, but the “future” feeling is carried off in an entirely new way. Worn, not inhabited. Designed, not constructed. Playful, not austere. (Read an interview with Tilden here).
Writer and head of the Art Theory Workshop at Australian National University‘s Anne Brennan refers to Tilden’s jewelry as “a talisman for our contemporary nomadic life.” It would be unfair to think of these pieces as a throwback, when the idea behind them carries more conceptual virtue than a mere aesthetic gimmick. This difference is notable to the viewer, and undeniable to the lucky wearer.
-Katharine Morales
IF YOU GO:
Blanche Tilden
“wearable cities”
July 31, 2012 – August 25, 2012
Opening Reception: Tuesday, July 31, 6 pm – 8 pm
Gallery Funaki
4 Crosley St.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 300
t: +61 (0)3 9662 9446
http://www.galleryfunaki.com.au/gf/