TACOMA, Wash. — At the Museum of Glass, nine glass vessels hang by the neck in an installation called Strange Fruit.
Children’s shoes are scattered on a playful surface, the after shock of some kind of trauma.
A blue black heart drips ink down a wall.
Just some of the pieces you’ll find in A Two Way Mirror, an exhibition of contemporary Black artists curated by Jabari Owens-Bailey.
“I wanted to find something that reflected myself,” Owens-Bailey said. “This idea of exploring Black identity through glass hadn’t really been done before.”
Inspired by a 2020 essay, The Whiteness of Glass, that revealed fewer than one percent of glass artists are people of color, Owens-Bailey made it his mission to exhibit works from the best Black artists in one place. Most of the well known glass artists are white men so Owens-Bailey had a challenge.
“I started my search, like any other 21st Century researcher, by googling Black Art’ and ‘Glass’,” Owens-Bailey said.
Some of the names he already knew from their stints as artists in residence at the museum.
Brooklyn’s Leo Tecosky uses graffiti iconography in his art while Chris Day, who claims to be the only Black glass artist in England, hopes to inspire conversations about Civil Rights and slavery without ever showing bodies in chains.
“I want people to walk away with the knowledge that there are Black people at work right now with this wonderful material,” Owens-Bailey said. “I also want to open the door for young people that might want to work in glass. I think that representation matters and once you’ve seen someone do something it normalizes it for you.”
A Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists will be on exhibit through October 2024 at the Museum of Glass.
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