The exhibition The Sharp Edge of Glass takes as its starting point the concepts of “opacity” and “resistance,” characteristics that are on the one hand properties of glass and on the other hand refer to the challenge of social limitations. With this in mind, the exhibition aims to create a dialogue between practices for which disobedience and transgression are means of breaking with established canons.
The resistance and hardness of glass differs from another of its properties: “fragility.” But these characteristics are not mutually exclusive. They coexist and together make it a valuable and useful material. Likewise, struggles against racist, misogynic, and normative attitudes share the contradiction of opposing an oppressive system while using the same weapons against it. However, it is also through failure that learning occurs. Therefore, difference and opaque alliances must be defended as places where another value system is possible. It is on the margins where alternatives to social injustice are able to emerge and, through collective work, can affect the mechanisms of social regulation.
From various perspectives, Eglė Budvytytė and Bart Groenendaal, Eduardo Hurtado, Jamila Johnson-Small, Mourad Kouri, and Claudia Pagès explore forms of resistance against situations of exclusion and control. Using creative expressions such as writing, dance, or storytelling, they embrace oddities and social divergences, an attitude that has also empowered their own work.
The Sharp Edge of Glass
Curated by Alba Folgado
Meno Parkas Gallery
Rotušės a. 27, Kaunas
07.10.2020 – 08.11.2020
Photography: Gintarė Žaltauskaitė