In defiance of the material’s apparent fragility, Danish glassmaker Bjorn Friborg appears to blast through glass spheres, creating portals that allow us to peer through solid forms at Tribeca’s HB381 Gallery. A metaphor for ‘exposing and revealing the inner self,’ these apertures are created by adding hot material to blown glass and allowing for melting and further color changes with the application of flame. (On view through Aug 18th).
Kelly Akashi’s poetic assemblages of sculpture in glass, stone, bronze and rammed earth at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery heighten awareness of her materials and processes while juxtaposing human concepts of time with comparatively vast measures of time on earth and in the universe. Here, the glass sphere titled ‘Cosmic Axis,’ brings to mind the axis around which the earth rotates while also alluding to the connection between heavenly and terrestrial realms. Surrounded by photos of distant nebula taken by telescopes, the sculpture feels especially present in the space of the gallery, its delicacy contrasted by a large concrete pedestal and enhanced by cherry blossoms on top that extend into the space of the sphere. (On view in Chelsea through June 10th).
You need good eyesight to appreciate Marco Maggi’s minutely crafted cut paper collages and etched glass, but ironically in the artwork ‘Global Myopia’ at Bienvenu Steinberg & J, the artist proposes that our collective vision has deteriorated as technology has come to dominate our lives. Quoting the artist, the gallery explains, “We live inside a phone: a screen that brings us closer to what is faraway and takes us away from what is close to us.” Maggi covers this huge lens with minute geometries as delicately engraved as frost. Viewers are invited to slow down and view the work carefully, appreciating the details and the process of discovering them. (On view in Tribeca through Nov 12th).
Selling off unwanted furniture and household decoration takes a new twist in one of Matthew Brandt’s latest series, ‘Rooms,’ at Yossi Milo Gallery, for which he acquired chandeliers, then hot-fused photos of the room in which the chandelier hung to the individual pieces of the chandelier. Literally bearing witness to their past, the lights feature windows (as seen here), furnishings and other signs of life from the past owner. In this piece, ‘May’s Living Room,’ pictures of the past environment recall a pointillist painting crossed with a geometric abstraction. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 11th).
Josiah McElheny’s current show of blown glass sculpture at James Cohan Gallery’s Lower East Side location was inspired by a set of references as complex as his mirrored environments but dazzles even without the background info. Prompted by a library imagined by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, McElheny creates vessels intended to house various forms of knowledge. In this sculpture, McElheny explains that oblong shapes embody the idea of atoms in motion and the planet on its elliptical orbit. Though we don’t literally see a library of knowledge relating to elliptical motion, each sculpture inspires wonder at the possibilities of what we may have not yet considered. (On view on the Lower East Side through June 12th. Masks and social distancing are required).
