When Portland, Oregon-based glassblowers Andi Kovel and Justin Parker met Harry Allen at ICFF in 2005, they were surprised to hear that the New York design stalwart was a fan of their work. They shouldn’t have been. Rooted in functional, concept-based expressions that defy traditional notions of glass art, Kovel and Parker’s craft reflects their history at Brooklyn’s UrbanGlass—where they worked as artists-for-hire for the likes of Maya Lin, Kiki Smith and Matthew Barney before moving West and founding their studio, Esque.
Collaborative by nature, they asked Allen if he’d ever worked with glass. ‘I was doing all these cast objects, and they were making super sick shapes,’ Allen remembers. They joined forces to create the 'Grid Bubble' series, where ivory-coloured glass spills out of metal cages, and presented them at Allen’s then-new showroom in New York’s Lower East Side.
A decade later, their second collection builds on the first with simpler shapes that give way to gloriously strange results. On view at Heller Gallery, 'Harry Allen Esque' comprises some two dozen vases and lit sculptures, some hung from the ceiling with near-invisible wire. Glass was blown directly into circular, square and triangular cutouts of stainless steel, which constricts and supports each vessel to form a unified whole.
‘Metal is the complete opposite of glass: it’s hard, cold, and noisy, while glass is clean and soft,’ Kovel says. ‘We’ve managed to marry them in a way where they are totally interactive and dependent on one another.’
The objects were made two months ago in Esque’s studio. All three pairs of hands are visible in each: Parker, a master gaffer (the main glassblower), was in charge of blowing. Kovel picked glass colours and forms, while Allen chose the metal frame and suggested how it might hang. Glassblowing’s unpredictable nature produced a few hurdles. Instead of staying in place when put onto molten glass, the heavy metal frames kept sliding toward the bottom. The glass kept blowing into spheres, forcing the trio to decipher how to make it do other, more interesting things.
Once complete, the whole thing had to go into the annealer, an oven that cools the glass, which turned the metal a purply orange hue. ‘In glassblowing you start with an idea, but the process designs it,’ Kovel says. They named the pieces using acronyms of each piece’s formal characteristics: 'MSHP' (Medium/Square/Hanging/Peach), 'RSUTWP' (Rectangle/Square/U/Table/White/Persimmon), and so forth.
While people have blown glass into metal before, few have managed to chart new aesthetic territory. ‘The aesthetic almost comes from somewhere else,’ Allen concludes. ‘It has everything to do with us, and nothing to do with us. It’s the sum of all the parts we set up.’
On display at New York's Heller Gallery, the pieces are made by blowing glass directly into circular, square and triangular cutouts of stainless steel, which constricts and supports each vessel to form a unified whole
‘Metal is the complete opposite of glass: it’s hard, cold, and noisy, while glass is clean and soft,’ says Andi Kovel of Esque. ‘We’ve managed to marry them in a way where they are totally interactive and dependent on one another’
All three pairs of hands are visible in each: Parker, a master gaffer (the main glassblower), was in charge of blowing. Kovel picked glass colours and forms, while Allen chose the metal frame and suggested how it might hang
While people have blown glass into metal before, few have managed to chart new aesthetic territory. ‘The aesthetic almost comes from somewhere else,’ Harry Allen says. ‘It has everything to do with us, and nothing to do with us. It’s the sum of all the parts we set up’
INFORMATION
‘Harry Allen Esque’ is on view until 28 May. For more information, visit the Heller Gallery’s website
Photography: Rune Stokmo
ADDRESS
Heller Gallery
303 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10001
-
Vestre’s neo-brutalist furniture will bring ‘a little madness’ to Paris Fashion WeekBound for Paris Men’s Fashion Week this month, Norwegian furniture brand Vestre reveals a sculptural bench and mirror created with designer Vincent Laine and fashion creative Willy Cartier – the latest outcome of its risk-taking ‘a little madness’ initiative
-
For its latest runway show, Zegna creates a serene oasis in DubaiThe Italian fashion house took over the Dubai Opera for a S/S 2026 show that proposed a lived-in elegance, drawing inspiration from Dubai’s sunbaked landscapes and Zegna’s birthplace of Trivero
-
Time-travel to the golden age of the cruise ship at Sea Containers LondonThe South Bank hotel celebrates its tenth anniversary with four new suites inspired by period cabin design, from Edwardian elegance to 1980s glamour
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been up to this weekThis week saw the Wallpaper* team jet-setting to Jordan and New York; those of us left in London had to make do with being transported via the power of music at rooftop bars, live sets and hologram performances
-
Photographer Geordie Wood takes a leap of faith with first film, DiversGeordie Wood delved into the world of professional diving in Fort Lauderdale for his first film
-
New book celebrates 100 years of New York City landmarks where LGBTQ+ history took placeMarc Zinaman’s ‘Queer Happened Here: 100 Years of NYC’s Landmark LGBTQ+ Places’ is a vital tribute to queer culture
-
San Francisco’s controversial monument, the Vaillancourt Fountain, could be facing demolitionThe brutalist fountain is conspicuously absent from renders showing a redeveloped Embarcadero Plaza and people are unhappy about it, including the structure’s 95-year-old designer
-
See the fruits of Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely's creative and romantic union at Hauser & Wirth SomersetAn intimate exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Somerset explores three decades of a creative partnership
-
A major Takashi Murakami exhibition sees the world in kaleidoscopic colourThe Cleveland Art Museum presents 'Takashi Murakami 'Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow', exploring outrage and escapist fantasy
-
Technology, art and sculptures of fog: LUMA Arles kicks off the 2025/26 seasonThree different exhibitions at LUMA Arles, in France, delve into history in a celebration of all mediums; Amy Serafin went to explore
-
Inside Yinka Shonibare's first major show in AfricaBritish-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare is showing 15 years of work, from quilts to sculptures, at Fondation H in Madagascar
