ABSTRACT
In Room Four dedicated to glass in Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham’s The Middle Earth, the artists provided a statement about glass’ properties. They noted that it is one of five states of material: solid, liquid, gas, dark matter, and glass. One of Durham’s very recent assemblages with glass especially captures this type of reorientation toward duality: his 2019 Blue Flower, a light blue Murano glass flower from a broken chandelier entwined with and suspended by rusted thick, steel wire. Writing to art historian and curator Mario Codognato, who organized the exhibition of contemporary art the Pio Monte della Misericordia Church acquired in 2019, Durham pointed to duality in Blue Flower beyond material use and art historical reference: he said that he named Blue Flower with the writer Novalis and an aspect of indigenous cosmology in mind.
