Charisse Pearlina Weston | Through: The Fold, The Shatter

March 2 – April 13, 2021

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, Through: The Fold, The Shatter will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

Events

Through: The Fold, The Shatter

Visiting Hours:
Open to the public by appointment Friday and Saturday. To make an in-person visit or interactive appointment, sign up on Recess’ Calendly.

Through: The Fold, The Shatter continues Charisse Pearlina Weston’s twofold material investigations into the ways in which glass––as architectural and surveillance material––creates encounters of perceived visibility, intimacy, and power. Focusing on tactics developed from “Broken Windows Theory,” Weston’s project examines intimacy, the built environment, and anti-Black protocols of movement and sight/seeing.

A phrase developed by social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling in the early 80s, Broken Windows Theory argues that “One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.” In other words, in neighborhoods where there are visible signs of decay and disorder, more decay and disorder can be expected in the future. The detrimental effects of this theory of this can be seen in both sanctioned and unsanctioned stop-and-frisk policies in areas experiencing urban decay, along with pervasive narratives of criminality that haunt BIPOC. 

Meditating on the way that broken windows, in Broken Windows Theory, comes to symbolize breach and invasion, Weston will create a series of hand-folded glass sculptures, etched with fragments of writing by the artist. The work’s central element will feature a balanced glass installation.

Charisse Pearlina Weston’s Through: The Fold, The Shatter is part of Recess’s program, Session, which invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist’s project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.

 About the Artist

Charisse Pearlina Weston is a conceptual artist and writer whose practice is grounded in a deep material investigation of poetics and the autobiographical to explore the delicate intimacies and reticent poetics underlying black life. Her recent exhibitions include group shows at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; as well as solo exhibitions at Project Row Houses, Abrons Art Center and HOUSING (forthcoming). She has received awards from Artadia Fund For the Arts, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund, Puffin Foundation, Santos Foundation, among others. In 2019 she was a Dedalus Foundation Fellow in Painting and Sculpture and a nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. She is currently an Artist Fellow at the Museum of Art and Design. She holds a MFA from the University of California-Irvine. She also participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2019.

Recess is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; The National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council; The Horace Goldsmith Foundation; The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; Art for Justice Fund, Art Matters, The Jill and Peter Kraus Foundation, The David Teiger Foundation, The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Cy Twombly Foundation, The Fox Aarons Foundation, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Blavatnik Family Foundation, The Luce Foundation, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Arison Arts Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation, David Rockefeller Fund, Robert Lehman Foundation, The Destina Foundation, Pinkerton Foundation, ELMA Philanthropies, Laurie M Tisch Illumination Fund, The Salomon Foundation, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Prospect Hill Foundation, Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, and The Tikkum Olam Foundation. In-kind support is provided by Materials for the Arts.