The Swiss artist Simon Berger (46) is causing a stir in the US. After the election of Kamala Harris (58) two years ago, he was asked by the US if he could make a glass portrait of the first female vice president of color.
What is special about the portrait: Harris’s face on the 159 kilo weighing, two meter square window consists of countless small shards of glass. It is meant to symbolize Harris breaking through a glass ceiling.
The portrait was first exhibited for several days at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and was then stored in the New York office of the creative agency BBH. She got to know the artist in Niederönz BE through social media and coordinated the assignment together with the Artstübli gallery in Basel. The client was the online National Women’s History Museum.
Why not an artist?
The artwork is now available to the public again. The image will be on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. until spring 2023. Memorial Library in Washington DC as part of an exhibition showing the development of black feminism. But not everyone is apparently satisfied with the Swiss.
Susan Whiting, president of the National Women’s History Museum, had to explain to The Washington Post why the commission was not given to a woman or a minority. She replied that her museum was turned on only after the portrait was completed.
This question was apparently asked by the newspaper’s journalist, says artist Simon Berger to Blick. Otherwise he would never have heard such criticism. “It just had to go fast. After placing the order, I delivered the work within just 14 days.”
He received a video from Kamala Harris
Berger is surprised about the reason for this portrait. “It has given my career an incredible boost,” he says happily. “It’s crazy what’s happening there. I’m getting a lot more attention now.” On Tuesday he returned from the “Art Miami” in the US. In February he was allowed to do a solo exhibition in the renowned Murano glass museum in Venice.
Unfortunately, Kamala Harris has still not met. “But I received a video of the vice president jogging past the portrait with bodyguards and looking at it.” Berger doesn’t know what she thinks.
It is also unclear what will happen to the portrait in the future. His former project leader and current gallery owner Philipp Brogli (42) also shrugs. “We don’t control it anymore, but we’re happy if it’s made available to the public.”
Simon Berger’s work with glass can be seen from December 8 to March, from Thursday to Saturday, at the Artstübli Gallery, Steinentorberg 28, in Basel. Here he stages a space completely free according to his ideas. www.artstuebli.ch