Karen LaMonte: Absence Adorned

December 10, 2005 - September 4, 2006
Organized by the Museum of Glass

Karen LaMonte is a leading figure among a generation of American artists using glass in large-scale sculptural work that exemplifies technical achievement coupled with artistic quality. Absence Adorned is the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of this interesting and complex young artist, whose work reflects a sophisticated American probing into social and gender issues, but is as broad and enigmatic as that of any of her European contemporaries.

Karen LaMonte began using the dress as a sculptural form and metaphorical symbol in 1999, the year she received a Fulbright Fellowship to travel to the Czech Republic to study glass casting at the famous Pelechov studio founded by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová in the 1950s. It was there, in a foundry known for its expertise in producing large and architectural-scale glass sculpture, where she was able to realize the life-sized dresses for which she has become well known.

LaMonte has developed a meticulous casting technique to better represent the fabric and how it drapes over the body, giving her sculptures a more human presence. Her painstaking process requires making two molds-one from an actual body that shapes the interior of the sculpture, the second from the garment, which shapes the exterior-and casting them together in one shell. The hollow casting technique creates an inner cavity allowing light to flow through and be held within, resulting in a unique final effect where the dress is also an imprint of the body that once wore the garment and is now invisible, leaving only traces of its figure behind-the curve of a breast, the slope of a back, the indentation of a navel. The ghostly translucent forms evoke the ephemeral quality of our corporeal selves and the fragility of the human condition.

Undeniably sensual and beautiful, LaMonte's pearlescent long gowns project ideals of appearance and wealth promoted by haute couture, while questioning the psychological and social implications of the way we dress. Yet, these notions of female identity and beauty are confidently explored without the need to challenge or critique feminine stereotypes.

LaMonte merges her formal investigation of space, texture, and light with social commentary. Like many artists of her generation, she is acutely aware of art history's canon and draws largely from art historical references, from Hellenistic sculpture to Dutch vanitas paintings.

While glass is LaMonte's primary medium, she frequently incorporates both photography and printmaking processes in her work, innovatively exploring different media to elaborate her conceptual ideas. The result is a solid and seamless system of different approaches, as in her recent series of cast glass antique mirrors, which combine photographs with a photo-resist process made for transferring portraits of the deceased onto gravestones. LaMonte has also developed a special monotype in which articles of clothing are printed directly onto translucent paper that is hypersensitive to texture. The physical construction of the garment and its texture, seams, and wrinkles reveal themselves on paper with a radiographic quality, while its history remains an allusion, much like the figure beneath the dress of her sculptures.

About the artist:

Karen LaMonte (born New York City, 1967) received her BFA in 1990 from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fulbright Grant in 1999 and a Biennial Award from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in 2001. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, The Corning Museum of Glass, and the Chrysler Museum of Art. She has been a guest professor and lecturer at many international institutions, including the Glass Society of Ireland, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Rhode Island School of Design.

LaMonte is a principal artist of the glass medium and has collaborated with filmmakers and artists, such as Matthew Barney, with whom she worked to create theatrical glass objects for Cremaster 5. She has participated in many group exhibitions internationally, including The Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice, Italy; the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY; and Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany. A solo exhibition of her work opened in December 2004 at the Czech Museum of Fine Art, Prague, Czech Republic. She lives and works in New York City and Prague.