The Glasse Brian Calvin, Mary Corman, Nick Doty, Maureen Gallace, and Jason Tomme January 16 – February 19, 2025 In 1594, French physician André du Laurens published the book A Discourse of the Preservation of the Sight. In several passages, Laurens uses “glasse” as a metaphor for seeing, which invokes our perceptions of both the world and the self. When discussing the human eye and how it functions, the eye is compared to a “looking glasse” in which the world is reflected into the brain. Laurens was a big fan of eyeballs, sight being “the noblest of all the senses” because it “causes us to know greater variety and more differences of things…” Laurens later discusses the condition of melancholy, where in one passage “the glasse” is a mirror to the afflicted (melancholic) observer who sees himself as a fallen “beast.” Both then and now, the idea of the glasse serves as a reflector to the world and to the self. Art is typically all glasse, as is the work in this show. And whether it depicts beauty, fallen things, or otherwise, the “real world” in which art is made—that which exists beyond the frame—is also housed within it. Come see: Brian Calvin’s inscrutable figures in exile? Mary Corman’s corridored interiors betwixt the fates? Nick Doty’s who knew? and who knows? Maureen Gallace’s savage scenes of inclement ponderance? Jason Tomme’s cross-hatched manifestos of twinkled oblivion? View the exhibition checklist here.
