Cancer Survivor Art at Museum of Glass
Published in the Weekly Volcano, July 16, 2015
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| Shirley Klinghoffer, “CRT Revisited, 2015,” slumped glass installation. Photo by Duncan Price. |
Artist Shirley
Klinghoffer is a cancer survivor; she has used her own and others’ experience with this deadly disease to create
haunting and touching works of art now on display at the Museum of Glass.
Her large-scale
installation pieces are inspired by hospital armatures used as support for
women’s bodies during radiation therapy. Alongside one wall and extending
outward like a thrust stage in a theater are platforms upon which lie
transparent glass shapes barely recognizable as casts from the torsos of women
who have undergone radiation therapy. They are disturbing yet beautiful,
delicate yet powerful.
Klinghoffer
writes, “Discovering beauty in ugly truths is a challenge.”
That is the
challenge of her art.
On the wall
above these clear glass body forms, written
statements from and about cancer patients are projected. Similarly, against one
wall is a bulletin board with statements written by cancer survivors and/or
their doctors, family members, caregivers and museum visitors. Next to this
bulletin board sits a desk with writing supplies. There are no instructions,
but apparently anyone who wants to write something to be added to the bulletin
board may do so.
On yet another
wall is a line of the armatures. They look like woman-shaped life preservers
that have been beaten and torn and repaired with masking and duct tape and
hunks of foam. They are rough, gray in color, and horrible in their
associations. They look like implements of torture. Even though the women whose
bodies these armatures supported may now be cancer free, one gets the
impression when looking at these that they must not have survived.
"Going
through cancer treatment has so many challenges, but somehow along the way we
connect with special people and certain objects that become truly meaningful in
sustaining us through our journey and become healing objects," Klinghoffer
wrote. The exhibition includes a mixed-media wall sculpture of her personal
healing object. It is called “Witty in Pink.” It is a sculpture that looks like
a flower. It is pink. The center is a large ball with many little nipples on
it. The petals are made of vintage tulle. Like the other works, it is
simultaneously strong and delicate. Interestingly, she chose the color pink as
a symbolic color before pink came to be associated with cancer.
On display
along a back wall in the museum’s lobby area is “Vanity,” a mixed-media
installation by Joseph Rossano that deals creatively and memorably with the
extinction of certain animal species. I would rather not describe these works
but would prefer encouraging visitors to the museum to view
the work for themselves and be surprised
as I was. Rossano’s piece is beautiful and thought-provoking. Be prepared to
take some time with it; it is worth the effort.
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