Shari Mendelson “Glasslike”

UrbanGlass

poster for Shari Mendelson “Glasslike”
[Image: Shari Mendelson "Green Animal with Vessel"]

This event has ended.

Curated by Elizabeth Essner

UrbanGlass presents Shari Mendelson: Glasslike, curated by Elizabeth Essner. New York-based artist Shari Mendelson interprets ancient art using the most modern of materials: throwaway plastic bottles. The artist’s vessels, figures and animal forms are glasslike inventions, but they hew close to their early antecedents—a result of Mendelson’s deep fascination and careful study of the field. Glasslike, a solo exhibition, will explore the artist’s current body of work in context with its key source, ancient glass.
Mendelson’s approach is like a child’s game of telephone. The artist begins with containers – Pom-Wonderful™, V8™, Sierra Mist™ – which she carefully repurposes. Her vases, urns, mythical figures, and animals are embellished with everything from glitter, to powdered mica (meant for eye make-up), to tea bags. The resulting objects are as mysterious as they are mesmerizing. Archeological in feel, “sell-by” dates and impressed logos reveal their contemporary origins.

In recent years Mendelson has extended her work into glass. Not a glassblower herself, a 2014 residency at UrbanGlass led the artist to collaborate with technicians to remake her vessels into the medium. Mendelson has continued with several museum-based residencies since, where she has worked with gaffers to create new work responsive to each institution’s ancient glass collection.

Glasslike will consider the layers of translation inherent to Mendelson’s work reflecting on material value, historical interpretation, and the role objects can play in the past’s relationship to the present.

The exhibition opens on September 12, 2018 at UrbanGlass with a reception open to the public between 6-8PM. Please visit urbanglass.org for daily gallery hours.

Shari Mendelson (b. 1961) is an artist based in Brooklyn and upstate NY. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at Todd Merrill Studio in Manhattan, Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, and John Davis Gallery in Hudson, New York. Among other recognitions, the artist has received four New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. Mendelson received her MFA from SUNY New Paltz in 1986 and is currently a lecturer at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan.

Elizabeth Essner is an independent curator, writer, and researcher based in Brooklyn, New York. Recently a Curatorial Fellow with the Center for Craft, she has curated exhibitions for institutions including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and Arizona State University Art Museum. Elizabeth has written for magazines including Modern and Metalsmith and serves as a researcher for two forthcoming craft-focused publications. She has previously been an auction house specialist and an appraiser, and received her MA from the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.

Media

Schedule

from September 12, 2018 to November 03, 2018

Artist(s)

Shari Mendelson

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