Aedes - 75, 86, 91, 94 Monte Clark Gallery

Carwan - 113

2020, Sept 3 - Nov 7 / Copper

5 August 2020, Athens, Greece: Multidisciplinary artist and designer Omer Arbel will present a series of new sculptural works at Carwan Gallery in Athens. From 3 September until 7 November 2020, the exhibition 113 will showcase a display of copper sculptures that are the result of a strand of new discoveries that are part of Arbel’s ongoing research into the reciprocal relationship between glass and copper.

In the creation of 113, a glass form is blown conventionally, then a liquid alloy made predominantly of copper is poured in. The chemical composition of both glass and alloy are calibrated to establish a deliberate discrepancy in the rate at which each material expands and contracts in response to temperature change. As a result, during cooling, the glass form shatters off, leaving a metallic shadow of itself. The metal, when hot, does not come in contact with oxygen on the glass side of the form, leaving an iridescent finish, contrasting with a coarse oxidized finish on the inside surface exposed to air.

The exhibition consists of 70 unique pieces which have been created by hand in Vancouver, Canada. They will be shown as a fixed constellation positioned on a display table along the central axis of the new Carwan Gallery space in Athens. The gallery promotes and produces collectible design, developing exceptional cross-cultural collaborations that call to attention a specific market – the Near East. For those unable to visit the gallery, an innovative VR experience and guided journey has been created for the exhibition.

These works demonstrate Arbel’s decade old signature process, which is to let the intrinsic properties of a given material suggest its form, rather than impose an external idea of form upon the material.

Full Credit
Single Credit
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right credit
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Artist Statement: Omer Arbel

“For some years I have been interested in matching the coefficients of expansion of glass and copper, so that the two could co-exist when fused to each other. I’ve wanted to explore formal languages that might emerge when the two materials, so different from each other, are worked in tandem as part of novel processes.

Over time, I’ve realized that any idea eventually leads to its opposite. For 113, the coefficients of
expansion are deliberately divergent. When hot, the glass and copper interact to make a form that neither would be capable of on its own, in a kind of performance staged by the glass blowers, with great skill, in a short amount of time. The object immediately begins to cool, and the two materials, because of their intrinsic nature, are compelled to reject each other. I am interested in the form that remains, an artifact resulting from (or documenting) an act of unpredictable contingency and circumstance.

Exhibition info:

September 3 to November 7, 2020
Mondays to Fridays 2pm – 10pm
Saturdays and Sundays 10am – 10pm

Carwan Gallery, Athens
Polydefkous 39, Piraeus-Athens, Greece

Aedes - 75, 86, 91, 94 Monte Clark Gallery
Aedes - 75, 86, 91, 94
Monte Clark Gallery