I remember the NYC art scene in the 1980s. There was a lot of exciting stuff happening, and one of the innovative artists who emerged from that chaotic-but-fun decade was Sydney Cash. Early in the decade, Cash came across a stash of something called Flutex, an old industrial patterned glass that acts as a kind of screen, distorting what’s behind it in very specific ways. It was commonly used in things like shower doors and office partitions. Cash took some of his existing works and put them behind the glass, and very much liked what he saw. He then started creating art that was designed with Flutex in mind. He turned up his color pallet, explored geometrics, and started building enclosures of glass which contained a single piece of art which, when viewed from different angles twisted and changed. It’s beautiful stuff. It’s no wonder his marvelous work is featured in many of the world’s most famous collections, inclueding that of the Museum of Modern Art, the Corning Museum of Glass (my favorite!), and Le Muse des Arts Decoritifs in Paris.

“In these sculptures, nothing moves. They’re kinetic, but they’re optically kinetic, and it depends where your eye is. There’s a choreography of the viewer. The way you see this piece is how you move in relation to it. When you stop, the sculptures stop moving.” – Sydney Cash

You can follow Sydney Cash on his website, and on YouTube and .