Destruction
and Creation
In order to create glass, the first step is to heat stone and metal, both
in powdered form, to an incredibly hot temperature thus, in principle,
destroying them. That means that before the artistic process using glass can be
started a destructive force must be used in order to create the raw material.
Then the glass is formed by blowing or casting – still at immensely high
temperatures. This is followed by several days of cooling before processing can
continue.
We spoke to four sculpture network artists about their work with this
exceptional material and the path they followed to arrive where they are today.
Starting with Eva Moosbrugger, who first had to flounder with stone in order to
discover her love for glass, then with Alexandra Bremers and Christine Chilcott,
who both create philosophical and psychological subject matter in their
installations with (and without) glass, concluding with Johannes von Stumm, who
places the materials of metal and stone, both of which must initially be
destroyed to create glass, in a trialogue with it.
„I put the loneliness of being
a stonemason behind me and learned to work with glass as a team.“
Eva Moosbrugger, ESPRIT SERIES (2017 ongoing), glass, each c. 42 x 26
x 17 cm
Eva Moosbrugger began her
artistic work with painting. After several years with watercolors, egg tempera,
oil and brush she began to create wall installations and reliefs. She combined
stone, beton and concrete with found objects onto flat surfaces to create
abstract pieces. The final step into the third dimension was, for her, working
with ceramics. In a kiln she built herself in her garden she fired her objects,
much to the great regret of her neighbors, who, due to the great amount of
smoke, regularly threatened to call the fire department. But, instead of
proceeding directly from ceramics to glass, her next material was stone.
After several years Eva ran up against a personal limitation. „For me
stone is not a material used to make cheerful things.“ A creative lull of
several months followed - full of sadness and frustration. Then, completely
unexpectedly she found the solution in a second-hand store in Lindau on Lake
Constance: „There in the display case was something that snapped me out of my
current state. It was brightly colored, three-dimensional, terribly tacky and
pretty awful - a colored glass clown.“ Back from her trip she began researching
her idea and convinced the (very skeptical) owner of a glassworks to help her
make her vision become reality.
Eva Moosbrugger, ESPRIT SERIES (2017 ongoing), glass, c. 42 x 26 x 17
cm
Many years later she has perfected her process, progressing from the first
idea to the creation of the object while working with the team at the glass
factory and after several weeks of filing. The bright colors of the clown seem
to reappear in the ESPRIT SERIES. „While I was gardening I kept finding
small pebbles in the vegetable patch, which really upset me at first. But when
I looked at them more closely they reminded me of little heads.“ Thus she used
them to create the ESPRIT SERIES - jolly garden ghosts in incredibly
bright colors „in order to make the little gray pebbles happy“.
Eva Moosbrugger, MEMORY OBJECT SERIES (2014 ongoing), glass, metal,
each c. 35 x 30 x 18 cm
In her upcoming pieces she plans to deal with death explicitly: „At the
moment these are entitled Chicas Mexicanas – the Mexicans view death as
almost more important than life itself and, at first glance, celebrate it with
vibrant colors and great cheerfulness, despite the very serious background of
the cycle of growth and decay.“
“Creating art is the hardest
thing I’ve ever done in my life because you are constantly questioning
yourself.”
As a young girl Alexandra Bremers climbed a tree and saw a
small looper caterpillar on a branch. While crawling along the tiny insect had
placed its forelegs on a branch, its body created an arch in the air and its
back legs were touching a different location on the branch. In her childlike
logic Alexandra thought that the caterpillar was in two different locations and
two different times simultaneously. Whenever we speak about her work with glass
this image is mentioned repeatedly. The basis for her work is a combination of
philosophies from Kant and Heidegger. „My interpretation of Kant is that as an
autonomous artist I must set new rules for every piece. I combine this idea
with Heidegger’s theory that art is the only thing that can show us its true
essence. I base my artistic creativity on that.“ In addition, Alexandra regularly
includes themes derived from current discoveries in neurology and the question
of where ideas come from.
Alexandra Bremers, Alpha and Omega. Lou laughs longer. (2011), glass,
steel, ceramics, 75 x 85 x 45 cm.
In her work Unrevealedness: The nature of the Thing. the glass
objects appear to glow on the inside, they suck up daylight and simultaneously
sparkle. Alexandra is thinking of the original process of creating glass:
„While being made glass glows orange and while it is cooling the color disappears
and the glass becomes clear and transparent – it is as if something has risen
beyond and then comes back again in the here and now.
Alexandra Bremers, Unrevealedness: The nature of the Thing. (2016), blown
glass, acrylic, nanometer. Photo: Jan Wilms
In the future the artist will continue to search for further questions and
to create art that relates to the dimensions of glass and is similar to the
time travel of a simple caterpillar.
“To interpret and express that which is, is an endless task for both
philosophers and artists.”
Christine Candolin began her
professional artistic work without any detours, directly creating
installations. „I never wanted to make those classical three-dimensional
figures,“ she said in our interview. Even as a child, painting was something
Christine took for granted and it felt completely natural. Thus, it was no
great surprise that she applied to go to an art academy directly after
finishing school.
Christine Candolin, Wer wenn ich schriee (2004),
glass, 160 x 50 x 5 cm
Since then she continues to experiment with various materials. And in most
of her pieces glass plays a role. It is used as a transparent canvas for text,
presented in multiple layers one over the other, combined with video films or
serves as a relatively strong base in pieces with powders and pigments. In most
of her site-specific installations glass is not a fragile, breakable material,
but a strong and stable base and creates a stark contrast to soft fabrics. Her
philosophical thought processes and her passion for the human psyche are just
as present in her installations as is glass.
In Wer wenn ich schriee (Who when I scream) the artist transcribes a
section of the Duino Elegies by poet Rainer Maria Rilke onto 17
large-sized plates of glass and places them one on top of the other. She
associates the layers that are created in this manner with the complexity of
human consciousness; she feels that this piece and other works form an abstract
connection to her thoughts, as an expression of her occupation with the
networking of material and spirit.
Future works will not only fill the room with shapes, but also with sounds,
thus giving the installations yet another dimension.
Christine Candolin, Matter & Light (2008), glas, mixed media, video
„It’s the spiritual energy of a piece of art which counts, and nothing
else.“
Johannes von Stumm, Mother and Son, Father and
Daughter (2015), metal, 500 x 460 x 180 cm
In order to learn French Johannes von Stumm lived in Paris for a few
months as a teenager. His apartment was directly across from the Musée Rodin
and through the window in the wall of the museum he saw The Burghers of Calais
for the first time - it was the spark that ignited the fire of his enthusiasm
for three-dimensional art.
Back in Germany he attended a life drawing class at evening school. When he
told his teacher that he wanted to become an artist, the man clearly advised
against it: „He said, that he was an example of what became of an artist – a
poor man without a wife or a car who taught evening classes at the community
center.“ Following this line of reasoning he began to study law and political
science. But after just a short time his path took him back to art – at the
academy. Even before beginning his studies he had started to integrate
shattered glass bottles and melted metal into his pieces. „I tried
painting, but I didn’t have a poetic feeling for color, I just kept putting
primary colors next to each other“. So he decided to pursue his passion
for materials, to stand in a cloud of dust and watch the sparks fly and to
study with a sculpture class. „After multiple experiments melting glass and
metal together my path finally led me to the Bavarian Forest, where I learned
to blow glass and how to manipulate this very special medium.“
Johannes von Stumm, Disk V (2012), granite, bronze, glass, 36 x 37 x 15 cm
Even today the contrast between the fragility and strength of glass
continues to fascinate him and he expresses this contradiction in fascinating
works of stone, metal and glass. The three materials are placed next to one
another, each of which tells its own story and has different properties and yet
they still work harmonically together. In his current pieces, however, the
artist rarely uses the often transparent, sometimes hardly visible material,
but has taken a step further towards the immaterial. In his work Mother and
Child the metal sculpture creates the negative form for the actual figure –
a child of (sun)light.
Johannes von Stumm, Mother and Child (2007), metal, 205 x 115 x 115
cm.
Regardless of whether it is brightly colored, a part of an installation or
used in combination with other materials – glass is a unique material, the
creation and preparation of which needs a great deal of energy. At the same
time this energy can suddenly be lost during any stage of the process, be
broken, crack or burst. As varied as the different pieces created by the
individual artists are, glass nevertheless inherently transmits an awareness of
growth and decay, for creation and destruction and gives the pieces a very
special depth, dimension and light.
Thank you Eva, Alexandra, Christine and Johannes
for sharing your experiences and stories with us!
Elisabeth Pilhofer is a freelance editor and curator based in Munich.