Martha Glowacki’s Natural History, Observations and Reflections Martha Glowacki’s Natural History | Page 27

Figure 11. Martha Glowacki (American b. 1950), What Every Woman Ought to Know (detail), 2002–2003, altered wood cabinet, mixed
media, 78 x 30 x 23 in. Photo Eric Ferguson.
Anschauung, of knowing what we know through intu-
ition, of having the hope of developing more complex
ideas through empirical observation and material
engagement, permeates Glowacki’s work.
In Lacuna (mirror box illusion) (2016), Glowacki trans-
forms a late nineteenth-century fish tank into an endless
world, as its title suggests, into an empty and unfilled
space, through mirrors that surround a bleak, sculpted
and cast landscape featuring a bottomless hole. Fish
tanks, unlike orderly cabinets or structured experi-
ments, served to bring living animals inside, to domesti-
cate nature. Yet here, nature is endlessly self-referential
and impossible to capture (Figure 12). Looking closely
at Lacuna, the bleak grays and emptiness give way to
something hopeful: green tips come to life to suggest
the possibility of something new, a possibility that you
need to see, to experience through the visions of science
Figure 12. Martha Glowacki (American b. 1950), Lacuna
(mirror box illusion) (detail), 2016, cast iron, bronze, wood,
mirrors, marbleized paper, animal bones, pigments, 42 x 24 x 24 in.
Photo Mike Rebholz.
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