In Library of Amorphous Matter, Curator, Leora Malt-Leca described how Jocelyne Prince considers the material properties of glass, an amorphous or noncrystalline solid that is the central protagonist of a fantastical library of cracks, drips and scars. Slide Library (2002-present), exhibited in the Redwood’s Rovensky Delivery Room on custom “atheneum-like” bookcases. She examined the features of hundreds of intimately scaled, handblown glass slides, attesting to what Prince calls her longstanding “love affair with libraries.”
Prince explained how the collection of glass slides were made through non-conventional mark-making processes on hot glass. These transparent glass plates are catalyzed through light and housed in shelving units akin to Athenaeum bookshelves. This Library celebrates material knowledge and gives value to both the subjective nature of the hand-made as well as the objective methodology of recording data and observations. Glass is a reactive material and through a careful curation of specific actions a repository of experimental information is created.
After the discussion, guests proceeded outside to the Redwood grounds to view Octadic Beacon (2021). There the artist has installed one hundred and ninety-two glass panes in the windows of Abraham Redwood’s eighteenth-century summer house to create the site-specific installation. The historic structure, illuminated from within as if lit by a fiery hearth, transforms into a radiant edifice: a shining beacon on a hill. Semi-post-pandemic, the stakes of this Puritan image – and whether it can remain an American ideal – felt very timely.
