Mare's Nest

Stephanie Stein

Info: Featuring a contribution by Owen Gump and a text by Tal Sterngast. (…) Stein’s sculptures fluctuate between an incarnation of an imprint in matter (like Joseph Beuys’) and image-objects: a projection upon matter or casting matter according to a given image (after Marcel Duchamp, all Pop Art and what followed it). The accurately formed objects, or rather things, seemingly abstract, are arranged among themselves in an interrelated syntax. Like a fragmented body in which each fragment has a life of its own. Nineteen hand-blown glass needles protrude horizontally from the gallery wall, facing visitors as they enter (HOT COLD, 2025). A field of drops frozen in midair, suspended horizontally against gravity. Each is no longer than fifty centimeters, thin with spiky tips that penetrate the space and pierce the air. At first glance, penetration, sharpness and transparency seem to be contradictory attributes. Wonder and attraction coincide with cautiousness, aversion contends awe. But we know that a needle can prick and that glass can cut; glass is also used to make surgical scalpels and ultra-thin blades. (…)