Nick Crowe, Commemorative Glass

This book is edited by Kathy Rae Huffman. It includes texts by Esther Leslie, Godehard Janzing and Marcus Verhagen. "Commemorative Glass" features a selection of new and recent works from artist Nick Crowe. Crowe's practice encompasses a wide range of media, including film & video, sculpture and the internet. This exhibition focuses on Crowe's specific interest in glass as a contemporary artistic material. Ranging from large scale sculptures to delicate hand-engraved panels, the work utilises the diverse material properties of glass together with its varied cultural connotations to explore issues relating to how we remember, from personal expressions of loss, to momentous political and historical events such as The Gulf War. Crowe questions the prevailing perceptions held within British Society, looking particularly at the way media representations of events are never simply unbiased reflections of reality. "Commemorative Glass" also continues Crowe's investigation into the role of technology and its contingent effects on everyday life. The internet is used both as a focus for his work and a tool to research its content. Taking the dematerialised and often ephemeral material found online, Crowe transforms it into solid, but transparent, sculptural forms. "Commemorative Glass" includes two new large scale sculptures produced specially for Cornerhouse, The Beheaded and The Campaign for Rural England.