Museum of Glass is proud to announce A Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists, opening October 21 and on view until fall 2024. A Two-Way Mirror is an exhibition of contemporary Black artists who have used glass to create work that deconstructs social, cultural, gender, and racial identity concerns. The artists range in background from African American, to British, to Puerto Rican, and each uses glass to reflect thoughts and bodies that have historically been fraught with exploitation. Due to its reflectivity and translucence, glass is an apt medium to interrogate identity constructs such as the theory of double consciousness presented by W.E.B. Dubois in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk.
“I proposed this exhibition because I wanted to see what artists of color were already doing in the medium and what they had the potential to say. I found the medium to be so rich for exploring personal identity, and it provides the opportunity to look at oneself. So, I looked for myself in the medium of glass and I found A Two-Way Mirror,” said exhibition curator Jabari Owens-Bailey.
Glass art has been predominantly devoid of access for historically marginalized groups of people. This has been, in large part, due to racial oppression, the cost of production, and the class division between artist and artisan. This exhibition cannot rectify these historic wrongs, but it is the Museum’s hope that A Two-Way Mirror will create a space in which to explore this inequity and offer works by artists of African descent which tell the artists’ own stories.
“As the production of glass has become more accessible, the medium has become more open to a wider range of voices. People of different racial, gender, sexual, and class identities can now tell their stories through glass. The medium reflects not only the inner truths of both the viewers and makers, but that of western society, and all the clandestine and muddied histories that lie within its core. The beautiful parts, abject parts, resilient parts, and the opaque all make themselves more evident as the viewer continues to stare through the glass,” added Owens-Bailey.
Many of the pieces in the exhibition are abstract, while others are representational. Each of the exhibiting artists uses glass as a proxy for a body, portrait, mental state, or historical trope. Throughout the exhibition, Dubois’s idea of double consciousness is explored as the glass functions as a metaphorical structure for that which is both seen and unseen.
“It is an honor for the Museum to be a platform for the important conversations taking place through the works in A Two-Way Mirror,” said Museum of Glass Curator Katie Buckingham. “We hope that visitors to the exhibition will be compelled to reflect on, celebrate, and learn from the powerful, personal contributions Black artists in the glass community.”
The exhibition will unfold through world-class artworks created by Anthony Amoako-Attah, Radcliffe Bailey, Layo Bright, Crystal Z. Campbell, Chris Day, Cheryl Derricotte, Alejandro Guzman, Mildred Howard, Jason McDonald, Parfums de Vigny, Ebony G. Patterson, Pellatt & Green, Related Tactics, Salviati and Company, Joyce J. Scott, Shikeith, Therman Statom, Renée Stout, Barbara Earl Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Leo Tecosky, Kara Walker, and Fred Wilson. Day, Bailey, Scott, Statom, Stout, Tecosky, and Wilson have been participants in the Museum’s Visiting Artist Residency program, and several works to be exhibited in A Two-Way Mirror were created in the Museum’s Hot Shop.
On October 20, from 5:30-8pm, Museum of Glass will hold an Exhibition Preview + Member Opening. This event is free to attend for Museum members and $10 for non-members. RSVP and learn more at museumofglass.org. Learn more about A Two-Way Mirror here: museumofglass.org/a-two-way-mirror.