Martha Glowacki’s Natural History, Observations and Reflections Martha Glowacki’s Natural History | Page 23

Similarly, plant table two offers a point of comparison,
rather than asking viewers to imagine the contrast
between placing cut flowers in or out of a box, and the
observations that might allow, the work is linked to a
round gear that suggests viewers may actually help the
plant reach towards the light in a prescribed way. Its set
path suggests that replicating an historic experiment is
mechanical and merely allows for the observation of a
carefully controlled action (Figure 3). The experiment
must be governed by forces that are defined in order to
quantify the movement of the flower, but such a formula
limits one’s experience of the phenomenon within rigid
parameters.
Finally, in plant table three—echoing Glowacki’s earlier
work Archetype and Resurgence (1996)—part of a living
plant is contained in what was a glass bottle in historic
experiments, but is rendered as a cage in Glowacki’s
work. The plant may grow towards the light but is con-
tained, limited and controlled by the structures through
which it is viewed (Figures 4 and 5). In this complex and
darkly beautiful work Glowacki is exploring the limits
of both the experimental process and its representation.
The work is about the methodical study of plants and
trying to understand how viewers can explain what they
see—what their sensory experience or intuition may tell
them, as opposed to the details a scientist has chosen to
record. Rendering this in metal makes the plants that
are supposed to be moving and growing just as static as
the prints that captured these experiments. Glowacki
inevitably comments on the trouble of transmitting and
translating direct experience.
Glowacki also studies the actual process of observing.
Her plant tables take for granted that we can see the
sculpture and engage with it. Deconstructing Flight: An
Homage to Étienne-Jules Marey (2017) and Rational
Recreations: The Camera Obscura (2016) question what we
see—or what we think we see—not just what can be
done with or is allowed by those perceptions.
Figure 6. Martha Glowacki (American b. 1950), Rational
Recreations: The Camera Obscura (detail), 2016, Camera: wood, glass,
lens, bronze, cast iron stand, size varies. Photo Mike Rebholz.
In Rational Recreations: The Camera Obscura (Figure 6), like
in the plant tables, Glowacki invites viewers to empathize
with historic scientists or users, to sit on the piano stool
and to gaze into the camera at three objects that may be
seen across the gallery. Inspired by the frontispiece in
William Cheselden’s Osteographia, or the Anatomy of the
Bones (1733), the items to be viewed inside of the machine
are visible, hanging upside down across the gallery: a
white wooden birdcage, an arched window and a parrot.
The camera works by allowing a viewer to look inside, fo-
cus the lens and to view the hanging assemblage right side
up. This level of participation allows the viewer to under-
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