Glasstress Boca Raton 2021

27 januari - 05 september 2021

This exhibition of new projects showcases over 30 international artists who have created works in glass in collaboration with the master glass artisans at Berengo Studio on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon. Glasstress Boca Raton II is a sequel to the acclaimed 2016 Glasstress exhibition at Boca Raton Museum of Art and includes new artists and major new works created since that time.

For more information visit the Boca Raton website

Collective Memory

Koen Vanmechelen is presenting his series Collective Memory; this series of art works consists of eight small towers of Encyclopedias of Human Rights, combined with a book of LABIOMISTA, the mix of life. Together they form the solid base for a society. The books support as many different glass objects, recurring symbols and themes in Koen Vanmechelen’s oeuvre, revealing the delicate balance between nature and culture, past, present and future.

Bijou for example, a female figurine reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf, is a crystallization of life and a reflection about a new way of thinking. The claw reflects on the predator nature of the human animal. The egg as a symbol of our globe, is continuously under pressure. Humanity is scared to lose and convulsively holds on to a framework of rules. Only the mix of ideas in respect to nature can liberate our planet.

The works refer to the Human Rights Pavilion; an evolving artwork by artist and curator Koen Vanmechelen developed in partnership with the Global Campus of Human Rights, Fondazione Berengo and the MOUTH Foundation. The project was initiated during the last Biennial of Venice of 2019 and will develop throughout the following two years during a world tour on almost all continents. In 2022, the resulting OPUS will be presented to the 59th Venice Biennial with a request for a recurring, international human rights pavilion.

Human rights according to the artist, can only be truly universal if they take into account local sensitivities. If they are supported by the weight of local narratives, memes and traditions. These are deceptively transparent to the outside world, but in their lay-out, texture and depth they are multi-dimensionally difficult to understand and navigate. Without understanding this and doing the effort to listen and to attempt to understand them, transparency will become darkness. And what was once connected will be dispersed.