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Thomas Glassford is perhaps most well known for his sculptures using dried gourds. Exploring the sexual undertones of these objects, the artist created wild assemblages and even juxtaposed the gourds with everyday functional objects, from furniture to lighting. Glassford’s body of work called Partituras (Musical Scores) are sculptural works which are either monochrome or coated with colorful vertical stripes that enhance the innate rhythm of the peaks and valleys of rippled metal. Departing from the functional premise of his earlier work, Glassford has focused on a new material, commercial anodized aluminum molding, to create wall sculptures that are unabashedly decorative and optically engaging. His works with anondized aluminum are low-relief constructions that flirt with the divide between painting and sculpture, simultaneously recalling minimalist sculpture and Op-Art painting of the 60s and 70s.

“…Glassford similarly creates playful parallels between vernacular design and high art
in works that recall the Neo-Geo glory days of artists like Haim Steinbach and Jeff
Koons. Sculptures made by stacking plastic, beige-colored cafeteria ware — plates, cups
and saucers — invoke Brancusi on the one hand and global mass consumption on the
other.”
— Ken Johnson, New York Times, January 9, 2004.

“Glassford slips and slides through the same terrain as the glossy and superficial magazines of our status-driven consumer culture… Although hardly insulated from the more formal history of art, he finds inspiration in the worlds of fashion, interior decoration, and even landscape (witness City of Greens, his project for InSite97), worlds that, in the final analysis, aren’t so far removed from those in which art itself is manipulated and transformed into a commodity.”
— James Oles, Poliester, 1999

Quint Contemporary Art is pleased to exhibit new works by Thomas Glassford. This will be Mr. Glassford’s second solo exhibition at Quint Contemporary Art. The exhibition will feature new sculptural works as well as works on paper.

Thomas Glassford is perhaps best known for his sculptures using dried gourds. Exploring the sexual undertones of these objects, the artist created wild assemblages and even juxtaposed the gourds with everyday functional objects. Increasingly he has turned to more industrial and urban materials. Some are found, such as embossed vinyl or plastic tableware, while others are modified, like the anodized aluminum siding used architecturally for gates and doorways. These works create rhythmic wall reliefs referring to the city while partaking in a dialogue with the vocabulary of minimalist painting and modernist architecture. Overall, these anodized aluminum works recall minimalist sculpture and Op-Art painting of the 60s and 70s. Of Glassford’s work art historian Mary K. Coffey remarks: “his sculptures often provoke unsettled responses. They seem, at first, to ingratiate themselves much too easily. They trigger aberrant desires: a covetousness we associate with consumerism, an erotic charge that derives from clandestine sexual economics, a yearning for beauty that feels shameful within an aesthetic inheritance structured by the austerities of modernism. They are formally pristine yet excessive and embarrassing.”

Born in Laredo, Texas, Thomas Glassford completed his BFA at the University of Texas, Austin in 1987. He then relocated to Mexico City in the early 1990s and has continued to live and work there. Glassford has exhibited widely in Mexico and internationally. Select solo museum exhibitions include “Cadáver Exquisito,” Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes, Mexico City (2006); Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; and “Event Horizon,” Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City (2003). Glassford also participated in InSITE 1997 and 2005, San Diego-Tijuana. Glassford’s work is included in numerous public collections including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, Texas); La Colección Jumex (Mexico City, DF); and the Televisa Collection (Mexico City, DF).

Quint Contemporary Art is pleased to present SHOW DOWN. The exhibition will open on June 20th with a reception from from 6 – 8 p.m. and will be on view through July 19th, 2008. The exhibition presents works by Roman de Salvo, Johannes Girardoni, Thomas Glassford, Jay Johnson , Simon Linke, Jean Lowe, Kim MacConnel, Ryan McGinness, Peter Shelton, Melanie Smith, Eric Snell, Greorge Stoll , Al Souza, Jan van Munster, Thor Vigfusson and Richard Wentworth.