By Richard Klein
Located in Darien, CT
In the mid 1990s Richard Klein started working with found glass objects, including bottles, drinking glasses, ashtrays, and eyeglasses. Initially, Klein rejected any object with commercial or advertising content, but in 2015 he became fascinated with the promotional content that was screen printed on ashtrays from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. This period was before smoking was looked at as being primarily a negative habit, and iconic American businesses, including Howard Johnson’s, International House of Pancakes (iHop) and Holiday Inn, all produced promotional ashtrays printed with their graphic identity.
By the time Klein became interested in these objects, the businesses had either ceased to exist, or had changed their logos, and many of their signature buildings, which where examples of classic, “Pop” roadside architecture, has been torn down or repurposed. The artist wanted to connect the glass objects with the business’s sites that were still recognizable and spoke of their history, so he began researching where original buildings still stood.
Klein then embarked on a series of road trips to photograph these sites with the intention of combining the photographs with the promotional glass objects. This led him to as far south as Maryland and as far north as upstate New York from his home in Connecticut.
American Glassware (2010-present) which is presented in a small, wall-mounted vitrine. American Glassware is composed of three glass objects: a “souvenir” Walden Pond ashtray made by me as a multiple; a real souvenir ashtray from the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair; and an authentic “Happy Face” drinking glass from the same era. They are all nestled in crumpled, vintage newspaper from 1967, and are presented together in a dilapidated cardboard box, as if they have been found in someone’s attic or basement. Once again, in a similar manner to the Glass House Ashtray, versions of his Walden Pond ashtray (Walden Pond Souvenir) have been injected into the collectable stream of tag sales and flea markets, creating a souvenir that never existed. The ashtray is screenprinted with an image of Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond as pictured on the title page of his book Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854). (The original illustration was created by Thoreau’s sister, Sophia.) Walden Pond Souvenir was originally produced for the 2010 exhibition Renovating Walden at the Tufts University Art Gallery in Medford, MA.
Richard Klein is a Connecticut-based artist, independent curator and writer. As an artist, he has exhibited widely, including the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase; Caren Golden Fine Art, New York; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; Hales Gallery, London; Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; James Barron Art, Kent, CT; The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland, OR; Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, NY; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Exhibit by Alberson Tulsa, OK; Incident Report/Flow Chart Foundation, Hudson, NY; ICEHOUSE Project Space, Sharon, CT; Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, CT and with ODETTA Gallery at the Equity Gallery in New York City..
Reviews of his work have appeared in Two Coats of Paint, Whitehot Magazine, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, and The New Yorker. In the summer of 2024 he will be the first Artist-In-Residence at Peck Ledge Light...
Category
2010s Assemblage Art by Medium: Newsprint
