The Great Fires

SHARI MENDELSON’s Radiant Glow at URBAN GLASS

With her current show at Urban Glass, Shari Mendelson joins a storied list of our city’s most valuable artistic and cultural practitioners. Her gorgeously installed Glasslike, featuring thirty-three works made from throwaway plastic bottles, channeling vessels from Ancient Greece, Rome and Persia, is a revelatory show of a master working amongst us; and the power of objects to transcend something larger about ourselves and our relationship to the things we hold most dear.

Like many of the works on view, Sidesaddle, 2018, made from repurposed plastic, hot glue, acrylic polymer, mica and paint, appears to radiate from within. The object’s seductive materiality sets the stage for an intimate meeting place; a space for us to slow down and wonder about our own bodies, our most ephemeral vessel, and ask: “Can I too conjure a similar light, a similar glow?” This economy of means belies a soulful presentness and grandeur which is Mendelson’s most generous gift to the viewer.

In a culture which is quick to celebrate the slick surface, Mendelson’s work flies in the face of it. Not only does she invite a closer examination of culture, she also invites a closer look at our own values (especially around what we consume and how we consume it), and our relationship to each other. A body of work done over the course of ten years, Glasslike is a singular achievement and one that should be celebrated in droves. A big shout to Elizabeth Essner, curator of this wonderful and exceptional exhibition.

Shari Mendelson’s Glasslike runs through this Saturday, November 3rd, at Urban Glass, 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn.

—Steve Rivera

10.30.18