Nina Westman "In Pieces-You Want a Piece of Me" opens at the Swedish Museum of Art March 24. photo courtesy: the artist
Glass artist Nina Westman‘s two-part solo exhibition “In Pieces-Do You Want a Piece of Me” is opening tomorrow at the Swedish Museum of Glass. In the exhibition, Westman strives to show viewers life’s fragility and how the rules of life, whether dictated by ourselves or others, can cause us to fall apart.
The first part of the exhibition “In Pieces” highlights the significance of glass by displaying the ceremonial role glass plays in Sweden. Photographs taken by the artist are shown on shattered glass panes, cake dishes and sand-casted glass body parts. The glass panes are also loudspeakers and the sounds coming from them are an important part of the exhibition. Each of the glass pieces are melancholic moments of life, frozen in time and representative of times when expectations were shattered like glass.
Westman views glass as a communicative material, a material known and used by all. She explores in her work the expectations people have of glass: fragile, sharp and often made to drink from. In all her projects she works with these expectations and attempts to turn them over. “In Pieces” incorporates historically cultural themes ranging from the famous quote “What a piece of work is a man” from Shakespere’s Hamlet, as well as contemporary references to musical entertainer Britney Spears and her song “You Want a Piece of Me?” In the exhibition’s second part, “Do You Want a Piece of Me” a life-size cake of Westman is broken into pieces and served on a plate. This will occur at the opening.
Nina Westman is a glass artist and blower with a background in acting and stage designing. She has earned at MFA from Konstfack University College of Arts, Craft and Design. Her work is interdisciplinary and includes glass design, performance art and installations. She often walks the line of applied and performance art. “In Pieces-Do You Want a Piece of Me” will open at the Swedish Museum of Glass on March 24 at 2 p.m. and will run through September 30, 2012.
—Suzann Caputo
IF YOU GO
Nina Westman “In Pieces-Do You Want a Piece of Me”
Dates: March 24 through September 30, 2012
The Swedish Museum of Glass
Södra Järnvägsgatan 2 352 34 Växjö, Sweden
0470-70 4200
Website: www.smalandsmuseum.se