51�鱨վ

By Jonah Grinkewitz

The Barry Art Museum at 51�鱨վ will host Leo Tecosky, a sculptor who works in glass, printmaking and metal, for its first Visiting Artist Lecture at 6 p.m. Feb. 2. The event is free and you can ��

Tecosky, who works as a glassblower in Brooklyn and teaches glass at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, works at the intersection of cultural exchange and craft traditions blending glassmaking techniques with deconstructed graffiti iconography.��

In addition to the lecture, Tecosky will visit with 51�鱨վ art students for two days.��

“We hope that students will connect with Leo's work and that having his voice in the critiques and class conversations will inspire them to build careers as artists,” said Charlotte Potter Kasic, Barry Art Museum executive director.��

The visiting artist program is a collaboration between the museum, the 51�鱨վ Art Department, the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Kasic said the partnership will bring in one contemporary artist annually for classroom interventions, public glassblowing demonstrations and lectures.��

“We hope this immersive approach to programming will give students access to working professionals, create pathways to mentorship and give our community windows into this learning environment,” she said.��

Some of Tecosky’s work was recently acquired by the Chrysler Museum of Art, and he recently completed a large-scale installation for the new Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters mental health facility.��

He was also one of the first artists acquired by the Barry Art Museum when Kasic became executive director in 2020. He employs a method of hot sculpting in his glasswork, using metal tools to pull out points and create hard edges. His signature is an arrow – wrought from the distillation of graffiti and urban signs – as seen in “Granat,” a collaborative piece between Tecosky and Swedish artist Simon Klenell.����

“I like to break down some of the forms that come from the technique,” Tecosky said, "so, deconstructing the classic, iconographic symbols like arrows and stars, exclamation points, but also specifically, stylized text that has a unique architecture to it.”