Something Wrong
Artist
Silvia Levenson
(Argentinean, born 1957)
Date2005
Mediumkiln-cast glass with pressed glass
Dimensions3 1/8 x 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (7.9 x 15.9 x 15.9 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds from the Doris and Arnold Roland Endowment Fund for the New Mexico Museum of Art, 2009
Object number2009.28a-e
DescriptionPink glass bowl with four pink glass hand grenades with words etched on the base of each.eMuseum Notes
Something Wrong consists of a pink Depression-glass candy dish and 4 small pink cast-glass grenades, upon which are inscribed the words "love," "respect," "sweet," and "honey." The uneasy juxtaposition of the sugar-sweet palette and honey-coated words with the potential explosiveness of the grenades speaks to the artist's ability to "make the personal political." Silvia Levenson's Something Wrong has an incisive humor and a timely commentary on today's precarious political landscape.
The pretty-in-pink candy dish serving up cast grenades in Levenson's Something Wrong is the antithesis of what would be on the dinner table in June Cleaver's well-kept home. There is an underlying anxiety in all of Levenson's work. Born in Argentina, she was a political activist during the ear of the military coup that ousted Peron, when tens of thousands of Argentineans were "disappeared," imprisoned, or tortured. The presence of grenades, knives, piercing nails, or hidden daggers in her work precludes the dream of a happily ever after.
The pretty-in-pink candy dish serving up cast grenades in Levenson's Something Wrong is the antithesis of what would be on the dinner table in June Cleaver's well-kept home. There is an underlying anxiety in all of Levenson's work. Born in Argentina, she was a political activist during the ear of the military coup that ousted Peron, when tens of thousands of Argentineans were "disappeared," imprisoned, or tortured. The presence of grenades, knives, piercing nails, or hidden daggers in her work precludes the dream of a happily ever after.
On View
Not on view2010