Claude Glass | Lorrain Glass | Black Mirror
In collaboration with Anna Riley
Artists in Residence, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, 2023
Forthcoming: Common Things: Art and Objects in Public Life, American University Museum, Washington, DC, in partnership with the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College
February 6–May 23, 2027
Curated by Sarah E. Rogers Morris, PhD, Crowstep Projects
During a residency at the Corning Museum of Glass, Justin Ginsberg and Anna Riley studied Claude mirrors, convex mirrors of dark glass named for the 17th-century painter Claude Lorrain. Travelers carried them to notable vistas, turned their backs, and viewed the scene in reflection. The pair made black mirrors of their own and, with Leonard Nalencz of Project 404, led a session of sustained looking at works by Fred Wilson and Spencer Finch. Each mirror is at once an object to behold and an instrument for beholding, and attention flickers between the two. The practice asks what we gain, and what we lose, by attending through a filter.
Convex Black Mirror
6" × 4" × .25"
Blown glass, ground and polished
2023
Justin Ginsberg and Anna Riley
Attention practice with Spencer Finch's The Secret Life of Glass
Corning Museum of Glass
Convex Obsidian Mirror
5" × 7" × 3"
Obsidian, cut and polished
2023
Justin Ginsberg and Anna Riley
Attention practice with Fred Wilson's To Die Upon a Kiss,
Corning Museum of Glass
Apparition
14" x 14" x 14"
Blown Glass, cut and polished
2023
Justin Ginsberg and Anna Riley
A blown black glass sphere with an opening cut to the dimensions of an iPhone. Looking into it, the viewer's reflection appears upside down and nearly holographic, suspended inside the dark interior.
Optical devices from a limited series made during the residency. The Corning Museum of Glass melted a custom black glass formula for the project; other pieces are obsidian or glass in other dark hues.
View the full exhibition and research (coming soon)→