Opening: Slinger’s Pop pipes at Easy Street Brooklyn

Slinger, Campbell's Sherlock, 2009. Flameworked borosilicate, digital image transfer. H 3 1/2, L 5, D 1 1/2 in.

From 7 PM – 10 PM this Saturday, April 10th, Easy Street Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will host a reception for the Pop Art-inspired pipes of “Slinger.” Entitled “Repeater,” the exhibition will feature the digital transfer of branded imagery from such iconic companies as Campbell Soup or Morton Salt onto flameworked objects that call attention to themselves as pipes.

Slinger’s exhibition, which will run through mid-May, and its unapologetic presentation of smokable, functional objects, fits well with the apparently revised mission of gallery owners Nate Purcell and Ian Kerr who closed down Silica Galleries this past January. While Silica stressed non-function and, with appearances at the SOFA shows and GlassWeekend, seemed to be a serious bid to transcend the marijuana-pipe culture that represents a sizable portion of flameworking activity, Easy Street doesn’t shy away from the so-called street culture of borosilicate pipemaking. Though the work they display reveals artistic sophistication, every piece could also be used to smoke a bowl. What Easy Street does differently than the head shops that typically display functional borosilicate pipes in crowded glass cases, is present the work of the field’s most ambitious practitioners in a high-end gallery setting.

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