Thomas Glassford: Implosion is Compulsory    Sep 20 - Nov 1, 2008

Quint Contemporary Art is pleased to exhibit new works by Thomas Glassford. This will be Mr. Glassford's second solo exhibition at Quint Contemporary Art. The exhibition will feature new sculptural works as well as works on paper.

Thomas Glassford is perhaps best known for his sculptures using dried gourds. Exploring the sexual undertones of these objects, the artist created wild assemblages and even juxtaposed the gourds with everyday functional objects. Increasingly he has turned to more industrial and urban materials. Some are found, such as embossed vinyl or plastic tableware, while others are modified, like the anodized aluminum siding used architecturally for gates and doorways. These works create rhythmic wall reliefs referring to the city while partaking in a dialogue with the vocabulary of minimalist painting and modernist architecture. Overall, these anodized aluminum works recall minimalist sculpture and Op-Art painting of the 60s and 70s. Of Glassford's work art historian Mary K. Coffey remarks: "his sculptures often provoke unsettled responses. They seem, at first, to ingratiate themselves much too easily. They trigger aberrant desires: a covetousness we associate with consumerism, an erotic charge that derives from clandestine sexual economics, a yearning for beauty that feels shameful within an aesthetic inheritance structured by the austerities of modernism. They are formally pristine yet excessive and embarrassing."

Born in Laredo, Texas, Thomas Glassford completed his BFA at the University of Texas, Austin in 1987. He then relocated to Mexico City in the early 1990s and has continued to live and work there. Glassford has exhibited widely in Mexico and internationally. Select solo museum exhibitions include “Cadáver Exquisito,” Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes, Mexico City (2006); Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; and “Event Horizon,” Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City (2003). Glassford also participated in InSITE 1997 and 2005, San Diego-Tijuana. Glassford’s work is included in numerous public collections including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, Texas); La Colección Jumex (Mexico City, DF); and the Televisa Collection (Mexico City, DF).