Lot 175: JOSIAH MCELHENY

The Development of Social Critique (The Designs of Jacopo Ligozzi)

shelf: 14 1/4 x 24 x 10 in. (36.2 x 61 x 25.4 cm)<br> <br>drawing: 21 x 17 3/4 in. (53.3 x 45.1 cm)<br> <br>text panel: 6 x 12 in. (15.2 x 30.5 cm)<br> <br>installed dimensions variable

wood shelf, blown glass, drawing on paper, and text display

1996-1998

Seattle, Donald Young Gallery, Josiah McElheny: Three Alter Egos, December 14, 1996 - February 22, 1997
Boston, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Story of Glass, January 22 - April 25, 1999

R. Updike, "Looking Through The Glass At Art History And Authority", Seattle Times, 1996
D. Hickey and J. R. Gross, Josiah McElheny, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 1999, pp. 28-29 (illustrated)

Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
AC Project Room, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

THE FOLLOWING IS A COPY OF THE TEXT FROM THE WORK:

The Development of Social Critique

Jacopo Ligozzi, court draftsman to Cosimo II of the Medici, began in 1617 to make drawings for the production of glass at the Florence factory in the Pitti Palace. Ligozzi
had these three wine glasses made by Muranese master Giacomo Della Luna to point out the lengths that aristocrats would go to to defne their own elegance. In this period it had become important to drink from glass as a part of an elite life of grace. Ligozzi consciously created these glasses both to ft into this lifestyle and to simultaneously critique it. It is virtually impossible to drink from these glasses without spilling wine on oneself. Through exaggeration, he used the object itself to insert his own concepts of rebellion and inquiry into the culture at large. This kind of object-based analysis of the social structure only returns with the art and design of the 20th century.