NXTHVN Show Looks Through The Glass

The plaster hand protrudes from the wall, dangling the gun from its trigger guard. It’s a precarious situation. Were it a real gun, there’d be a danger of it going off. But the gun is actually fashioned from glass; as a symbolic gesture, the gun is dangerous to others, even as it is also in danger of being broken. With a flick of that finger, a bullet could fly, or the gun could fall to the ground and shatter — or both.

A note explains that the glass gun is a replica of a real gun the artist, Timo Fahler, inherited from his father when his father died. The gun is a ​“fragile yet weighted object, blurring the line between protection and vulnerability,” a note states. ​“The title alludes to a growing uneasiness with life in the United States,” and perhaps how the urge some have to protect themselves only exposes how vulnerable they feel; maybe it makes them even more vulnerable.

The piece is part of ​“All At Once, Reflected Through Glass,” running now through May 18 at NXTHVN, at 169 Henry St. in Dixwell.

Curated by Rigoberto Luna, the show features the work of Angela Babby, Layo Bright, Cheryl Derricotte, Einar and Jamex De la Torre, Timo Fahler, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Titus Kaphar, Patrick Martinez, Perla Segovia, and more. It ​“revisits the industrial legacy of New Haven’s Dixwell neighborhood,” centering on NXTHVN’s campus.

Once home to H. Puddicombe & Company (a manufacturer of art and leaded glass from 1920 to 1945) and the Macalaster Bicknell Company (a key producer of laboratory equipment and glassware from the 1940s to 2012), this building is a relic of Dixwell’s manufacturing past — ​“before its adaptive reuse and establishment as an arts incubator in 2018,” an accompanying note states. ​“While glass production has long been part of this site’s history, the contributions of working-class laborers, particularly those of color, have often gone undocumented.”

Using ​“the artistic practice of glass as a medium of resistance” and for ​“critical and transformative storytelling, the artists’ works reflect on social issues and inequities while connecting with personal and collective histories, creating a space for dialogue within a complex multicultural world. These textured expressions invite viewers to engage with their respective messages, consider their broader social context and challenge the traditional, predominantly white narratives of glassmaking.”

“Blending the history of glass production with NXTHVN’s mission to disrupt the art world’s status quo, this exhibition highlights resistive and radical art-making through glass,” the note concludes, ​“redefining the material’s legacy and honoring those whose stories have long been overlooked.”

Outside the gallery is a display explaining the building’s history as a glassmaking facility. Viewed through that lens, the current show is as much a continuation and a transformation as it is a disruption. Like the tradespeople who worked in the building before, the artists in the show are, first and foremost, skilled artisans. 

Salvador Jimenez-Flores constructs cacti from blown glass, emphasizing both strength and fragility to talk about resilience. Perla Segovia movingly casts empty shoes in colored glass as a memorial to migrants who have died trying to get to the United States. Angela Babby gives Indigenous women reverence by casting them in stained glass. Cheryl Derricotte creates a simple shape in a smoky green to nod to a future dream home. And Titus Kaphar casts George Washington’s head in glass, filling it with tamarind and other liquids to comment on his hypocrisy of owning slaves.

With Grand Old Party, Einar and Jamex De la Torre create a kind of shrine in reverse, a small monument to the heady mix of spirituality and authoritarianism that has come to define one of the United States’s political parties. The tiny figures around the base of the glass head are worry dolls, which, in indigenous Guatemalan culture, are intended to remove childrens’ worries while they sleep. Here their function is inverted; they appear as a helpless throng before the demon’s whims. The elephant fused to the back of the horned creature’s head leave no doubt as to which party the sculptors are referring to. Why be subtle? We all know what’s going on.

But not every piece deals with a fraught topic. Layo Bright’s Bloom in hues of Red, Pink, Purple honors the sculptor’s sister, a note explains, by surrounding her with flowers: ​“Each flower, native to Nigeria, is symbolically chosen for its connection to the cyclical nature of life, representing transformation, migration, and cultural narratives.” The background evokes a ​“traditional healing ritual.” By taking the personal and the long view simultaneously, Bright arrives in a place of relative solace, not only in her affection for her sister, but in her keen sense of being part of a long continuum, an eddy in a circular stream. The sense of transience extends to the material itself. The glass, exquisitely crafted, is solid now. But who knows if there will come a day when it is broken? Maybe then it will be made liquid, and flow again, on its way to taking a new shape. 

“All At Once, Reflected Through Glass” runs at NXTHVN, 159 Henry St., through May 18. Visit NXTHVN’s website for hours and more information.