Their partnership has resulted in multiple artworks picturing the origins of the universe, with particular attention to the theory of the Big Bang. He has also repeatedly drawn inspiration from the enormity of the cosmos, gaining a working knowledge of astronomy through a long-term collaboration with the cosmologist David Weinberg. In McElheny’s diverse body of work, the infinite crops up again and again: from intricate patterns in glass, such as the dizzying spirals that grace a set of handblown plates, to the endless reflection of mirrored surfaces, as seen in works like Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely. Objects are containers, literally and metaphorically.” As the artist has remarked, “we animate objects through our experience of them, our understandings, misunderstandings, memories, and imaginings. Creatively engaging with the history of ideas, McElheny’s work entwines fact, fantasy, and material richness. His impressive command of glassmaking was honed over years of intensive apprenticeship, and his mastery of such skilled labor produces visually arresting works, leveling hierarchies between craft and fine art.Īn artist of diverse interests, McElheny draws on art history, politics, and cosmology to encode his works with information, converting beautiful objects into repositories of meaning. Though his artistic output varies widely, glassblowing is McElheny’s technique of choice. Trained at both the Rhode Island School of Design and the glass foundries of Europe, McElheny’s highly conceptual projects are realized through exquisitely wrought execution. The exhibition also examines images of time: archaeological time, linear and cyclical models, and the overwhelming span of cosmic time. Over the past two decades, the problem of infinity has driven McElheny’s efforts to represent the unrepresentable, as the infinite by definition must always elude stable grasp. Some Pictures of the Infinite tackles cosmic questions, tracing this persistent theme in the work of Josiah McElheny.
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