Last week, we featured artist Baptise Debombourg‘s arsenal of fictional architectural typologies, each of which was shaped by the unique form of a different firearm. Debombourg’s newest work, entitled “Aerial”, floods the crypt of a former Benedictine monastery with waves of compacted glass that engulf the space’s columns and floor in a vitreous “pool”. The piece, which is installed at Brauweiler Abbey in Germany and took some 420 hours to complete, was made by gluing 2 tons of shattered laminated glass and layered in successive sheets to form a mosaic that mimics the sea’s frothing waves.

The installation is divided in three segments or waves, each one corresponding to the windows on the western wall.  Light is funneled down the inverse of the chutes and is scattered along the sculpture’s deceptively flat, even folds. Since the surface of the avalanche is more fractal than flat, however, each of its nooks and cracked edges picks up and reflects the falling light in a different way.

[All photos courtesy of the artist]

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

tagged Architecture, Art, Baptiste Debombourg, glass, installation, light, monastery, oceant, tide

more articles by Samuel Medina