Carroña (Carrion)

This sculpture consists of an elaborate chandelier whose many parts were blown and tooled of transparent blood-red glass, assembled and hung, then intentionally dropped. A flock of taxidermied crows perches on the fallen carcass, and shards dangle from their mouths. The installation is meant to evoke opportunistic birds gobbling carrion by the side of the road, a metaphor for the gradual disappearance of Murano’s traditional glass industry. Javier Pérez was born in Bilbao, Spain, and lives and works in Barcelona. His sculptures and installations address the impermanence and cyclical nature of life, the body, and time. Focusing on themes of metamorphosis, Pérez’s work is characterized by strong symbolism, metaphor, and physicality. The artist often employs uncommon materials, such as horsehair, polyester, and silkworm cocoons, in addition to ceramics, textiles, and blown glass. Pérez delves into the essence of things—for example, the body—by metaphorically turning them inside out and comparing their opposing aspects, such as the spiritual and the carnal, the pure and the impure, or the beautiful and the ugly. He often submits his materials to high-risk situations (such as shattering glass) as a metaphor for the instability of a world that strives for preservation and perpetuation. These aspects of his work can be appreciated in Carroña, which he describes as a “typical object of the Murano tradition, a chandelier . . . changed into something different, an animal’s dead body with its entrails exhibited to the public.”