Kristoffer Noheden
February 15, 2024
*Article only available in English
The Canadian-Mexican artist Alan Glass’s early work Ouverture prochaine is deceptively simple in its construction, comprising a black wooden box glazed and sealed with red wax. The glass pane has been painted white with clearly visible circular motions, creating the appearance of turbulent clouds, swirling winds, or an intricately adorned curtain about to part, as though confirming the titular promise that something is on the cusp of opening. This tantalizing promise of revelation aside, the box remains opaque, its suggested mysteries safeguarded for more than 60 years. Visually, Ouverture prochaine is an atypical work for Glass, yet, the box is telling for the sense of secrecy and mystery surrounding his vast oeuvre…
Kristoffer Noheden
2024
*Article only available in English
This article examines a selection of the assemblage artist Alan Glass’s art made during the COVID-19 pandemic. In either direct or oblique ways, many of Glass’s works from 2020 to 2022 allude to the pandemic and other ongoing crises including war and ecological catastrophe. Drawing on archival material and interviews with the artist, the article emphasizes the significance of poetry and esotericism for his art, and interprets the works under consideration as examples of gnosopoetics, or the pursuit of higher knowledge and radical transformation through surrealist art.
Abigail Susik and Kristoffer Noheden
June 2021
*Article only available in English
The imposing assemblage Ziggurat polar stands 163 centimetres tall FIG. 1. Contained in a rectangular box, the work’s central feature is a found print of an ice castle with gun fire and fireworks erupting in arcs. At the bottom are two wooden plaques, one of which is painted red and says ‘VIVA’, the other one is painted green and says ‘MEXICO’. Ascending through the middle of the work are a series of affixed objects, including a small wooden box with two miniature croissants overlapping to form an X and two dice showing three and six; a sign announcing the Cirque d’Hiver at Boulevard du Temple in Paris; and two flat cardboard figures facing one another and holding hands at arm’s length. Finally, an enormous erect penis and two breasts made of clay are attached to the body of the woman who crowns the ice castle. Combining references to nineteenth-century Montreal, Mexico’s Independence Day and the city of Paris, Ziggurat polar resounds with transcultural exuberance. It is a poetic treatment of the sense of multiple belongings of its maker: Alan Glass…
Michelle Lasnier
May 13, 2010
*Article only available in French
Il faut d’abord aller à Alan Glass. Ensuite le laisser venir à soi. L’état de grâce est indispensable car Alan Glass n’est pas d’ici. Ni d’ailleurs. Où le réel est morne et insipide.
Comment l’aborder comme un simple quidam sans en être déconcerté et sans le déconcentrer lui même, lui qui s’émerveille san fin de la simple forme d’un oeuf.
Pierre de Ligny Boudreau
May 7, 2010
*Article only available in French
Afin d’être à l’heure à mon rendez-vous, je roule à toute vitesse dans Paris désert; nous sommes au mois d’août et il est à peine sept heures. Boulevard Raspail, rue de Bac, boulevard Saint-Germain, dans une voiture trop bruyante pour l’heure, la sensation me gagne d’être un extravagant insecte violant des lieux signés Magritte ou Giorgio de Chirico.
Gloria F. Orenstein
Novembre 2008 – Avril 2009
*Article only available in English
The predominant element in Alan Glass’s large, boxed assemblage Zéro de conduite (2021) (Figure 1) is an old, frayed Mexican school map of the world.1 Pieces of egg-shells have been placed on the twin images of the earth.
The area surrounding the map is a frenzy of scraps of paper overlaid with a swirl of more broken eggshells, and amid the detritus there are crinkled light-blue face masks. Zéro de conduite is part of a series of works made by Glass in the time of COVID-19 that refers to the pandemic, either directly through iconographical elements, or more obliquely through depictions of a world riven by catastrophe. Sometimes, as in the case of Zéro de conduite, both approaches can be discerned at the same time…
Susan Aberth
2009
*Article only available in English
Sumptuously installed in Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno, “Zurcidos Invisibles: Alan Glass, Construcciones y Pinturas 1950-2008” was the long-awaited retrospective of an artist who has called this country home since 1970. Long aligned with the surrealist movement through artistic temperament and close personal friendships in both France and Mexico, Glass’ drawings and sculptural constructions nonetheless appear strikingly contemporary.
