Kristi Cavataro

Hard sunlight glints off the surfaces of Kristi Cavatero’s multifaceted new stained glass sculptures. Among them are a polygonal blue serpent which slithers along the concrete floor; a curved blue and orange armature with rungs like pool steps, atop short stilts; and three interlocking circles with web-like soldering, hanging from the wall. The 10 sculptures, made for the artist’s first New York exhibition, are somewhere between playground equipment and delicate automatons poised to whir into motion.

The sculptures draw on disparate and surprising sources. Cavataro borrows a method of construction from Tiffany lamps: each piece of fragile glass is enveloped in a thin sheet of copper foil before being soldered together over a wooden skeleton. And their palettes are inspired by Judd boxes. But ultimately, each untitled sculpture from this group, described in the accompanying press release as “possibly utopian,” suggests its own past and proposes its own future.