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Eternity through the stars $10,000 |
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Studies in the Search for Infinity $8,000 |
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Josiah McElheny
Josiah McElheny (b. 1966, United States) is a conceptual artist most well known for his sculptural works in blown glass. After graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design, he spent many years apprenticed to master glassblowers in Europe and the United States. Deeply influenced by minimalist artist Donald Judd, McElheny’s sculptures and installations delve into “big ideas” including among others history, cosmology, modernity, infinity and utopia.
Eternity through the stars is a suite of six prints with photogravure images and letterpress text, part of McElheny’s ongoing investigation into the origin of the universe. The images are derived from his photographs of the Lincoln Center chandeliers designed by Lobmeyr in the 1960s, and the text is adapted from a cosmological treatise by the Marxist revolutionary Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), written while he was imprisoned during the 1871 Paris Commune.
Studies in the Search for Infinity, a suite of ten photogravures, derives from McElheney’s installation “Studies in the Search for Infinity” (1997-1998). Each print features a tightly cropped image of a mouth-blown plate, set against a black background that highlights its white, swirling “infinity” pattern. The extreme clarity of the glass recalls “cristalloware,” developed in Venice in the Renaissance, at a time when philosophers, astronomers and poets were debating whether the universe had a finite or infinite past. Their questioning set the groundwork for what we now know as the Big Bang Theory, a central focus of the artist’s ongoing investigation into the origin of the universe.
McElheny has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum, New York; Seattle Art Museum; the White Cube Gallery, London; and the Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. He is represented by the Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, and the Donald Young Gallery, Chicago.
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