LAINI NEMETT CORA JANE GLASSER
LAINI NEMETT CORA JANE GLASSER
The Delson Immersive Art in Supportive Housing 88-39 163rd Street Jamaica, New York Est. September 25, 2018
All works in this catalog are held in copyright through the respective artist; all rights reserved. Publication copyright Š 2019 Cora Jane Glasser and Laini Nemett. All rights reserved. Essay copyright Š 2019 Ann Aptaker. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the artists. This Transitional Services for New York project was supported in large part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This project was also made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the Awesome Foundation New York.
Front cover: Cora Jane Glasser, Garden Entrance, detail Back cover: Laini Nemett, Evolution, detail
ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN Amie Gross Architects BUILDING OWNER AND DEVELOPER Transitional Services for New York, Inc. GLASS FABRICATION Glasmalerei Peters in Paderborn, Germany MURAL INSTALLATION Decorada Installation PHOTO DOCUMENTATION Marianne Barcellona; David Sundberg/Esso GENERAL CONTRACTOR Racanelli Construction
QUEENS COUNCIL ON THE ARTS
IMMERSIVE ART IN SUPPORTIVE HOUSING: Cora Jane Glasser & Laini Nemett at The Delson
A
s a professor of art history, I periodically ask my students, “What do you think is art’s job?” After several blinks and blank stares, the students start to toss around ideas, arriving at an understanding that throughout the ages art has been employed to perform a variety of jobs. Examples range from spreading religious messages or instruction, justifying the power of a king, celebrating military victory, provoking revolution, even investigating and redefining art itself. From time to time, though, art has cast off ulterior motives and served its most fundamental purpose: to uplift the human spirit. This is what artists Cora Jane Glasser and Laini Nemett were asked to do, and succeeded in doing, at The Delson residence. Commissioned by Transitional Services For New York (TSINY), the Jamaica, Queens project was designed by Amie Gross Architects to foster social equity by weaving art into architecture. Thus, at The Delson, a supportive and affordable residence for individuals recovering from mental health disabilities or with low income, art’s job is to bring the uplifting experience of fine art into the daily lives of the building’s residents, a population whose exposure to art is often severely limited. Working individually, but harmonizing elements of their work, Glasser’s installations of colored glass and Nemett’s painted murals maintain their individual integrity while reinforcing Amie Gross Architects’ concept of a symbiotic relationship between the art, the building, and the residents. Rooted in the traditions of mural painting, glasswork, and architecture that stretch from the Byzantine period through the Renaissance to the present day, the resulting artworks are at once timeless and contemporary. Color, light, and form serve as the means of communication between the building and the visual art. We are brought into the visual conversation the moment we approach and enter the building. Framing the front doors, and immediately enveloping us in color and light, are Glasser’s 8-foot by 2-foot sidelight panels of colored glass in abstract geometric patterns, which echo the patterned tile on the building’s facade. Additional glass sidelights frame the rear doors. Between, in the interior of the space, is a freestanding 8-foot by 4-foot glass panel.
Thus, three basic elements of the building—the front, back, and interior—are brought into communication with each other. As residents and visitors move through the space, they are integrated into this conversation through encounters with color, pattern, and light. In other words, our movement through the space, indeed our very presence, becomes an element of Glasser’s installation. The panels’ brilliant color results from an intensive process consisting of enamel paint and antique glass on laminated and tempered panels executed by the firm of Glasmalerei Peters in Paderborn, Germany. Glasser and architect Gross traveled to Paderborn to participate in translating the designs into the finished artwork. Light streaming through the exterior and interior glass panels illuminates sections of the floor and walls, dissolving their solid surfaces into shimmering light and color. This play of colored light in turn engages in conversation with Laini Nemett’s equally colorful 8-foot by 9-foot murals. Working in a similar color palette to the glassworks, Nemett’s oil on linen murals harmonize with Glasser’s work and yet remain distinct from them. Working at the building throughout its construction, her paintings address the building itself, its structural reality, and its space. They explore and interpret the building’s internal angles, its structural evolution. For The Delson’s residents, the visual conversation now takes a deeply personal turn; Nemett’s murals are statements of the physical place where they live, of strength and safety, of beauty, of home. The murals’ monumental size draws viewers into another vision of the very building in which they are standing or walking through. The images’ monumentality imparts an importance not only to the art, but to The Delson itself, and thus the importance of its residents. It’s clear that artists Cora Jane Glasser and Laini Nemett have resoundingly answered the question “What is art’s job?” with sophisticated and thoroughly modern statements meant to uplift the human spirit; in this case, the spirit of The Delson’s special residents, visitors, and passers-by. Ann Aptaker Adjunct Professor, Art and Art History New York Institute of Technology
Glasser, Free Standing Panel, 2017-18, enamel paint on laminated & tempered glass, 96 x 48 in
Nemett, Evolution, 2018, oil on linen, 96 x 114 in
Nemett, Evolution (detail)
Glasser, Free Standing Panel / Nemett, Synthesis, 2018, acrylic & oil on linen, 96 x 105 in left: Nemett, Synthesis (detail)
Glasser, Garden Entrance Sidelite, 2017-18, enamel & antique glass on laminated & tempered glass, 92 x 28 in (each) left: Garden Entrance Sidelite (detail)
© David Sundberg / Esto
L
aini Nemett has exhibited nationally and abroad, including at the Guilin Art Museum in China, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Gold Coast Art Center, The Granoff Art Center at Brown University, Geoffrey Young Gallery, and Ethan Cohen Fine Art in New York. Selected grants and fellowships include a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, a Fulbright Fellowship, and artist residencies at Yaddo, The Joan Mitchell Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, UCross Froundation, Jentel, the Klots International Program in France, and Cill Rialaig in Ireland. She holds an M.F.A. from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Arts and B.A. degrees in Visual Arts and History of Art & Architecture from Brown University. Nemett is Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Union College in Schenectady, New York. www.laininemett.com
above: Nemett painting in her studio in Long Island City, Queens previous spread: Glasser, Night View, Street Entrance & Vestibule Sidelites (4), 2017-18, enamel & antique glass on laminated & tempered glass, 92 x 24 in (each) / Glasser, Free Standing Panel
C
ora Jane Glasser’s paintings, drawings and installations have been exhibited in group and solo shows nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Morris Museum, Blackney Hayes Architects Gallery, FX Fowle Architects Gallery, the Fitton Center for Creative Arts, Gallery 61 at the New York Institute of Technology, Monserrat College of Art, James Oliver Gallery, Godwin-Ternbach Museum, and the Katonah Museum of Art. Her work is represented in numerous private, corporate and municipal collections. She earned her B.A. degree from Queens College in Anthropology and Art, and studied at the Art Students League in New York. Glasser’s family name derives from generations in the construction trade of glazing. She currently works from her art studio in Brooklyn, New York. www.cjanepaint.com
above: Glasser proofing color at Glasmalerei Peters in Paderborn, Germany