Randy Polumbo, Love Sac, 2009. Glass, hotworked and cast. Photo: Dara Schaefer
“Rubbers: the Life, History and Struggle of the Condom,” the exhibition that opened February 4th at the Museum of Sex in the heart of Manhattan, includes historical objects, video, photography, and sculpture. Randy Polumbo, an artist known for his glowing rubber sex toy sculptures as well as his resin and plaster condom castings, had three glass sculptures included in this unusual exhibition.
Glass is a widely-used material in the sex toy industry and Polumbo plays on these associations with his pieces, each titled Love Sac (2009). Three illuminated sculptures are displayed in the windows of the museum, each consisting of various hot-sculpted glass forms arranged in cast-glass baskets.
The phallic forms redembled sex toys, however, according to Dara Scheafer of Boxoffice Projects, which represents Polumbo, the forms are also based on the stamens and pistils of flowers. Each of the colored arrangements (clear, pink, and multicolored) is illuminated from below, and is powered by solar panels which jut out of the bottom of the piece. The jewel-tones play on the resemblance between plant organs and sex toys, but, regardless of their associations, these universal forms are strangely beautiful. Their ambiguity is where Polumbo’s interest lives. As he explains in his artist statement, “What I am after is richness and complexity, not a one note answer.”
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March 23, 2010 at 1:56 PM
[...] Polumbo currently has other work on display in the “Rubbers: the Life, History and Struggle of the Condom” exhibit which opened February 4th at the Museum of Sex in New York. The 3 glass pieces on display are part of his 2009 series: Love Sac. [...]