Opening Reception with the artist: June 22, 6 - 8 pm

HB381 is pleased to announce Bjørn Friborg: Imploded, an exhibition of new glass sculptures and the artist’s first solo presentation in the United States. Friborg (Danish, b. 1983) challenges historical methods of glassmaking with a dramatically physical approach that pushes the limits of material and technique. His process is as much performance as a functional act; with unbridled intensity he pierces, ruptures, and manipulates the molten substance with results that are otherworldly, his tour de force actions viscerally reflected in the transformed material.

As Maja Heuer, Swedish Art Historian and Independent Art Curator writes:

"In his highly personal works, Danish born artist Bjørn Friborg, focuses on the intimate process of exposing and revealing the inner self. His free-blown and sculpted glass works are aggressively penetrated and open themselves to the viewer, much like an aching wound, inviting us to share in this act of total vulnerability. 

With the approach of a psychoanalyst Friborg explores social penetration - the brutality and violence of self-disclosure wherein our personal motives, deepest desires, feelings, thoughts and experiences are revealed to others. We open our innermost self to another to move close, to feel the unique and invaluable bond of intimacy which is ever so rare.

Sometimes the implosion is small and delicate like a beautiful poem; sometimes it is an irreparable void - a perpetual gap - roaring, wild and seductive. It is almost impossible to resist the temptation to gently touch the edge of a ruptured area, if only to search for some softness or solace. 

The process of sculpting the glass is an act of collaboration, accuracy, and intimacy. In a split second the team creates the ideal puncture to optimize the work’s unfolding. There is no planning; everything is immediate and the team must act without hesitation. This explosive rush is an integral aspect of the artist’s process, which explores and expands the boundaries of glassmaking. 

Friborg’s innovative approach is directly linked to his position as the hot shop manager at Holmegaard Værk, Denmark’s leading glass factory which has been resurrected to develop the practice of contemporary glassmaking both in Denmark and internationally.

Trained in Sweden at the glassworks of Kosta and Åfors, Friborg has succeeded in developing his artistic practice by focusing on this fleeting instant of complete vulnerability and union. His works present life in its extreme intensity, rewarding the observer with a glimpse of that precious moment in which pain and perfection converge in a single sensation."