A Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists
by Matthew Kangas
Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington
Exhibition continues through October 27, 2024
September 14, 2024
Attributed to Pellatt & Green (British, 1803-1831), “Cologne Bottle with Anti-Slavery Sulphide,” circa 1820-1830, blown and cut
glass with cameo incrustation, 3 3/8 × 2 1/2”. Collection of Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, museum purchase (90.22).
Photo courtesy of Chrysler Museum of Art.
Guest curator Jabari Owens-Bailey’s thematic premise for “Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists” is a shrewd and capacious way to include a wide variety of artists. This is one of, if not the first, museum surveys addressing African, African American, and Anglo-African artists working in glass. Drawing upon W.E.B. Dubois’ most famous book, “The Souls of Black Folk,” the concept of “double-consciousness” is expressed by many of the artists. According to Dubois, Black people are “always looking at oneself through the eyes of others.” One consciousness is for other Black people to see; the other is the face put forth before the gaze of White people. Responding to this powerful notion, Owens-Bailey has found artworks fully capable of embodying the idea.
Before examining the 34 works by 27 artists, among them teams, partners, factories, and anonymous figures, it is worth noting how conscientious Owens-Bailey has been in uncovering historic examples to reinforce his point. Racial stereotypes are addressed by many of the artists, but several older works openly endorse such stereotypes. For example, flame-worked figures from 1950s Germany depict “Man on Camel” and a “Blackamoor Figurine.” The blackamoor was a European cultural trope employed as far back as Othello: Africans dressed up as Whites for royal courts and assimilated exchanges. Trivialized to figurine status, their racial status is diminished and reduced to that of possessions, glass slaves rather than human.
Layo Bright (Nigerian, born 1991), “Adebisi VII,” 2020, kiln formed glass, 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 3”. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
Elsewhere, in Venice, Italy, Luciano Gaspari, working at Salviati, one of the oldest glass studios on Murano Island, made “Jazz Dancer” and “Jazz Musician” in the 1950s, both shrunk to souvenir scale at eleven inches high. The bare-breasted dancer suggests erotic ownership, while the saxophone player underscores how American jazz tantalized Europeans as early as the ragtime music that came with the GIs to engage in the First World War.
The most egregious stereotype here is “Le Golliwog” (1919), a French perfume bottle fashioned after a child’s doll with typical Black Sambo features. This single example serves as a reminder how, before Black artists used glass, glass artists used Black people as subjects in blatantly racist manners. That this was for centuries a cultural norm is not the point of “Two Way Mirror,” but the tone setter. In counterpoint, Owens-Bailey borrowed an English “Anti-Slavery Cologne Bottle” (c. 1820) from the Chrysler Museum of Art, which features a White cameo incrustation of two crouching figures. The British Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833.
Therman Statom, “Ladder,” 2012, blown glass and mixed media, 76 × 15 × 6 3/4”. Collection of Museum of Glass. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Installation art, freestanding sculptures, wall-mounted works and pedestal pieces compete for attention, as the spacious exhibit design provides plenty of room to examine each work. Familiar contemporary names such as Kara Walker, Fred Wilson, Hank Willis Thomas, Mildred Howard, and Radcliffe Bailey are joined by less well-known artists from Ghana (Anthony Amoako-Allah), Nigeria (Layo Bright), Jamaica (Ebony G. Patterson), Puerto Rico (Alejandro Guzman), and the United Kingdom (Chris Day), along with twelve other Americans. Only two artists are associated with the American Studio Glass movement, pioneers Therman Statom and Joyce J. Scott, both far ahead of the curve in treating glass as a fine art medium before many of the others were invited to Pilchuck Glass School or the Museum of Glass in Tacoma as guest artists.
Chris Day, “Strange Fruit,” 2018, blown and sculpted glass with steel, hessian cord and reclaimed electrical wire, dimensions vary. Courtesy of the artist and Vessel Gallery, London. Photo by Duncan Price.
The big names are disappointing in certain respects: they fulfill or under-fulfill the curatorial theme of highlighting racial stereotypes, social injustice and inequity, but materially the selected works are often timid or unadventurous. Walker’s 1997 etched glass “Canisters” of Black figures depict the violence of slavery, but their diminutive size (11 by 30 by 4 inches) neutralizes the rage inherent in most of her work, and draws attention to critics’ accusations of Walker aiming for White collectors by addressing tough subjects but in palatable formats such as, in this case, colorless glass. Similarly, Willis Thomas’ “Bury Me Standing” (2016) grounds a standing, robed woman on silver leaf, framed at 14 by 11 inches, suitable for the mantelplace or living room shelf. How different are these from the dainty 1950s-era stereotypes?
Perhaps more to the point, “I Saw Othello’s Visage in His Mind” (2013) is an ornate medallion, five feet high by 4 1/2 feet in diameter by Fred Wilson. Mounted on the wall, the shiny, pitch-black glass perfectly captures the rage and doom of Shakespeare’s benighted Moor of Venice, trapped in a Renaissance double-consciousness to a fatal end.
