Mark Peiser, Sanctuary (from the "Palomar Project"), 2009. Cast opal glass, stell, chrome. H 16 3/4, W 10 1/4 in.
In a bold new body of work, North Carolina-based Mark Peiser honors the technological breakthroughs of Corning engineers who created the largest cast-glass object ever made in the 1930s. His new sculpture Sanctuary (2009) is also a meditation on the literal and figurative concepts of negative space and the quest for knowledge.
The awe-inspiring story of George Ellery Hale’s decades-long quest to create a 200-inch mirror to look farther into the universe than ever before is a parable about the hunger for knowledge realized through American engineering and ambition. The Hale Telescope, which unlocked many mysteries of the universe when it went into operation at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) in Pasadena, California, in 1948, continues to operate.
The task of producing the giant mirror blank—then the largest single piece of glass ever made—was entrusted to Dr. George V. McCauley, a physicist in Corning’s research laboratory.
“By allowing for the development of astrophysical theories of outer space, the mirror itself would give structure and form to the unknown void—it would transform the negative into positive space,” says Peiser. “At the time, many worried that this transformation would reveal too much, that seeing closer to the origin of time would devalue the human experience, taking mystery away from the cosmos.”
Mark Peiser, Sanctuary (from the "Palomar Project"), 2009. Cast opal glass, stell, chrome. H 16 3/4, W 10 1/4 in.
But the result is often the opposite; new knowledge opens new questions. For Peiser, the known world is represented by solid space, while the unknown is empty.
“The negative space—the void—is the place of our dreams, our imagination, and adventures,” he says. “And it is the union of both which adds beauty, awe and mystery to all things.”
—Andrew Page
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February 28, 2010 at 5:43 PM
[...] The “Palomar” series was inspired by the accomplishment of the 200-inch diameter 18-ton glass mirror cast in the 1930’s to complete the Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The astronomers wanted it to measure the speed of light and verify Einstein’s theories. Production of the mirror was considered “a vast experiment” as it was a project of completely unprecedented scale and difficulty. Corning Glassworks won the contract for casting it after all the lensmakers in the world had failed. Eventually the challenge was met and its entire surface shaped and polished by hand and to eye an accuracy of 2-millionths of an inch. It is probably the most carefully and thoroughly touched piece of glass in existence. It fulfilled the aspirations of all its creators as did the finished telescope, which is a triumph and icon of the mechanical age and is known as the “perfect machine.” But making the mirror took two tries. [...]