SIMON BERGER’S WORKS WITH PORTRAITS ETCHED IN GLASS

Simon Berger’s works with portraits etched in glass challenge the modes of perception and the material itself.
These are works in which glass is tested to unleash its full potential and transform the smooth surface of the glass plate into an intricate network of cracks and fractures that recreate the human face.

Simon Berger uses a hammer, a tool that should not come close to a fragile material like glass, but in the hands of the artist it is not a tool but an amplifier of effects. Just take a look at the Reels on @simonbergerart, his Instagram profile, to realise how amazing his technique is!

The works of Simon Berger

Simon Berger is a multifaceted Swiss artist who has developed a great interest in different materials, such as wood and metal, from a very young age, but has also always been active as a street artist.
It was while creating a work of street art that he discovered, while working on some car wrecks, that windscreen metal and glass are interesting materials for new artistic explorations with a hammer.

The originality of Simon Berger’s technique and his glass artworks have been received with increasing interest and there are many institutions, galleries and festivals around the world that have invited him to exhibit his works.

Most recent projects have seen the creation of portraits of Kamala Harris and Kemal Atatürk, while several glass canvases for the ‘We are Unbreakable’ initiative paid tribute to the victims of the Beirut port explosion in 2020.

From the two-dimensional format of his glass portraits, Simon Berger has recently switched to the three-dimensional format of sculpture, further exploring the potential of his chosen medium.

PORTRAITS ETCHED IN GLASS BY SIMON BERGER

Contrary to the tradition of blown or modelled glass, Simon Berger’s sculptural gesture is reminiscent of the act of etching and sculpting on the glass surface.
This is an alternative approach to the glass portrait, which the artist himself calls morphogenesis and which succeeds in exploiting the unlimited expressive possibilities of this centuries-old material that is still too little explored.

Berger puts glass to the test by pushing it to its limits, to the point of breaking: brushstrokes become hammer blows on a sheet of glass, causing cracks and breaks in facial features.
This technique brings with it a fundamental inversion of meaning that unleashes new meanings: the shattering of glass, which might resonate as an act of destruction, a form of anti-creation, is the privileged means of releasing the purest essence of beauty from the depths of matter.

THE WORKS OF SIMON BERGER ON SHOW

SIMON BERGER
THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION
Civic Museum of Sansepolcro
Via Niccolò Aggiunti 65, Arezzo, Italy
From 2 July to 30 September 2023

Cris Contini Contemporary and Lo Studiolo d’Arte, present THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION, the solo show of Swiss sculptor Simon Berger curated by Sandrine Welte and Prof. Pasquale Lettieri on display at the Civic Museum of Sansepolcro from 2 July to 30 September 2023.

In this exhibition sponsored by the Municipality of Sansepolcro and the Department of Culture, Simon Berger embraces the artistic heritage of the city as a starting point for a commentary that develops from a 1925 essay by Aldous Huxley, in which the author describes Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection as ‘the greatest painting in the world’, thus saving it from the bombings of World War II.

Through an immersive, box-like installation of glass canvases, the labyrinthine structures of the human intellect are replicated, playing with the illusion of sight and the seduction of the senses.

SHATTERING BEAUTY. SIMON BERGER
Museo del Vetro di Murano (VE)
Fondamenta Marco Giustinian, 8
28 January to 7 May 2023.

The Murano Glass Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m..
Last admission 4 p.m.
Admission included with Glass Museum ticket.

The exhibition is conceived as an immersive installation and presents some 20 works, all previously unseen, that explore the fragility of the human condition through the artist’s hypnotic and innovative sculptural practice.

The exhibition is curated by Sandrine Welte and Chiara Squarcina in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and Berengo Studio, which also recently collaborated on the exhibition Ai Weiwei. The Human Comedy.