STEFAN WEGNER
WELL (never) READ

books, raw steel, cast iron, unique sculpture
96 x 14 x 8 inches, set of 2
$4,800

Multimedia artist Stefan Wegner creates clever text-based work and sculptures exploring provocative themes designed to ignite spirited conversation and encourage deeper personal reflection. Wenger’s conceptual practice is rooted in thorough research, meticulous design, and sharp sense of humour.As an artist, he draws from his background as a recognized and award winning creative in the communications industry. 

In WELL (never) READ, Wegner’s sleek and modern sculpture takes a humorous look at what it means to be considered ‘well read’. The artist collected iconic titles from Western literature, presented between high-pressure industrial brackets. On the book spines are listed the number of hours ostensibly required to read each one. He infuses the work with a keen aesthetic eye and his signature wit, while drawing attention to questions of intellectual labour, class performance, and the constraints of leisure.

Multi-media sculptor and installation artist, Claire Anderson, known for her sensual and intricate glasswork, explores feminist themes and critiques visible and invisible systems of power. She draws inspiration from life events to create unique objects that speak to tenacity of the human condition. Her glasswork is at once deeply autobiographical, and yet they reflect many challenges and obstacles experienced by many.

Anderson’s sculptures experiment with shape and form, often infusing them with allegorical or symbolic significance, to provoke varying sensory responses from the viewer. For example, Feed, I Know You’re Still Watching Me, and Let Me Out, Anderson creates elegant pillow-like forms in frosted glass as a symbol for safety, vulnerability and softness, which is undermined when transformed into the rigid and delicate solid glass. 

CLAIRE ANDERSON
Feed, Red Wine (empty)
2022
blown glass
approx. 11 x 5 x 13 inches
unique sculptures
$2,000

Private Case functions as a Pandora’s Box. The contents remain intentionally unknown in order to ignite the viewer’s curiosity. The text etched on the top of the custom-designed aluminum case serves as a provocation intended to stir speculation, conversation and personal reflection. What could possibly be contain within the box, and who would you entrust your most deeply held secrets to?

In I Know You’re Still Watching Me, Anderson explores the rich history of glassware. A chalice sits precariously balanced on top of pile of cast glass pillows, appearing as if it could fall over at any moment. Inside sits the artist’s broken engagement ring and wedding band. The sculpture explores themes of surveillance and lack of privacy. Anderson draws from a personal experience of being stalked on the Internet by an ex husband. As the title suggests, the piece highlights how we are always being watched and monitored. This lack of privacy online can be especially dangerous for women. Likewise, the deliberate imbalance of the cup is used as a symbol to critically interrogate the ritual of marriage as a historical tool for patriarchal control.

“Cups and chalices are important symbols as a glassmaker and very tied to my own past as a production glassblower (who specifically made cups for a number of years with her ex husband) […] As the pillows were cast, I carved each one out of wax and through a process of mold making and kiln working turned them into glass. Again, trying to retain a level of aesthetic beauty and softness with an extremely rigid and heavy material.”

With over twenty-four years of experience in design and copy writing, Wegner is able to elegantly marry everyday objects with text to tease out various layers of meaning and a multiplicity of readings. In Problem / Solution, viewers are invited to project their own fears and worries onto the pieces. Two identical sleek mirrored medicine cabinets bear the words Problem / Solution, respectively. They literally reflect the viewer’s inner state back to them.

Anderson’s suspended kinetic glass installation, Pay Attention, is composed of over 1000 hand crafted clear glass ‘needles’ suspended nearly nine feet tall from thin chains. Here, Anderson explores subjective embodied experiences. The delicate ethereal spindles of glass reflect the light, producing an aesthetically beautiful object designed to draw the viewer in. As one approaches the piece, the sensor picks up the motion and vibrates, jostling the needles producing a sound that is either pleasant or potentially unsettling, depending on the viewer’s perspective. For the artist, the reaction it conjures is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’; simply a part of being human. By removing any value judgments, Anderson seeks to cultivate a space for understanding, acceptance, and catharsis.

CLAIRE ANDERSON, Pay Attention (Detail)

Have you ever sat down to reflect on everything that transpired during a day, the last month, or over the ourse of a year? In What Happened Here, Wegner imagines various events and offers a full detailed account, from the dull and ordinary, to the joyful and amusing. What emerges is an epic record that visually communicates that in fact, many things have happen here.

“It took a year of daily concentration to dream up different events that could happen in a room. Mundane, bizarre, awful, and just absolutely lovely.”