Arts Beat: Glass artist’s magic is turning kitsch into art
By DAVID DUPONT BG Independent News Zachary Weinberg gave credit to his Bowling Green State University Alli Hoag for naming his exhibit, “Kitsch Alchemy,” at River House Arts in Toledo. She’s good with titles, he said. Zachary Weinberg Their first stop was at the title piece of the exhibit. Inspired by the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment of Disney’s “Fantasia,” the piece includes a broom encased in glass. The glass, Weinberg said, was blown to accommodate what’s inside, in this case a broom and a lamp. Weinberg, a technician in the glass studio, and Hoag, director of the glass program, got together recently during the closing days of the exhibit for a public conversation about his art. As he and Hoag strolled through gallery at 425 Jefferson Street, it became clear just how apt the name was. That’s not the easiest way to go about creating glass. Usually glass vessels are blown and then things fit into them. But, as Hoag noted, “you take the most difficult way to make something.” “Opuntia” Weinberg noted that in his piece, “Opuntia,” which serves as the home for a living prickly pear cactus, the joints could easily have been purchased. Instead he created them out of glass. “Completely inefficient,” he said. That’s part of the magic, the alchemy. Weinberg takes elements considered kitsch and through this technical alchemy turns them into art. “Kitsch,” he explained, “is art that’s been assimilated into the production economy and distributed to the masses.” Alchemy, which is connected to early science, was “a noble pursuit,” said Weinberg, though driven by the fantasy of transforming lead into gold. For Weinberg that often means working with things cast off from society. “I love working with thrift store stuff,” he said. For one thing, it’s cheap. But it’s also free from the whole cycle of production and consumption. Looking at the broom encased in glass, he reflected, that at one time these had to be hand crafted. “We have factories that just crank this stuff out,” he said. The broom is suspended, not touching the ground, so not functional. Weinberg also turns to pop culture in, “The Final Gesture,” a neon piece that has a thumb’s up gesture rising from waves. It is an evocation of “Terminator II.” But it also echoes the image of the Lady of the Lake in the King Arthur legends. The red neon casts an almost menacing glow. A…
