Material Culture

Artists working with vessel forms have had difficulty in making work that is truly appreciated as sculptural. Blown glass vessels inevitably create associations with vases, drinking glasses, and containers, and it is difficult to deny the functionality of these forms. Lipman does not try to alter her traditional forms or to bypass their function. Instead, she creates new meanings and contexts for them. Material Culture is made up of a tower of different kinds of vessels, all blown by Lipman, which overwhelms a too-small table. The abundance of objects comments on present-day and historical cultures of excess. It also makes reference to the amassing of large collections of objects, such as the collections housed in this Museum. As in the Dutch paintings that have deeply influenced Lipman’s work, each element of this still life is carefully and individually rendered, and the whole is symbolic of the fragility and transience of earthly delights. Some of the vessels in this still life are intentionally broken. Lipman has also placed a few glass fragments on the sculpture’s display platform.