Stine Bidstrup (born 1982) is Glasss 2007’s youngest exhibitor, but despite her youth, her artistic profile
is very clearly defined: she is a contemporary artist working in glass, with a theoretical frame of reference
which also includes the use of other artistic media such as photography and video. Spells at American
schools have helped to consolidate this profile, to the point where Bidstrup sees herself as being as much
a sculptor or a visual artist as she is a glass artist.
In the Bones Series one of Bidstrup’s simpler works, a number of bone-like forms measuring up to 75 cm in
height have been arranged in a long line. The allusion to the vase form is quite clear, but the forms have
no bottom to them. This play on the concept of ‘vase’ and ‘bone’ lends the forms a morbid cast which
piques the curiosity. The central impact of the work lies elsewhere, however: in the visual effect. No two of
the objects are the same. Even within the individual pieces the thickness of the glass varies, and the tops
of each one are cut and rounded differently. This gives rise to a whole gamut of subtle, visual shifts which
transform the surrounding space: no matter what angle they are viewed from or which way one moves
around them, one’s perspective on things is distorted. The fact is that there is no one preferred spot from
which this work ought to be viewed. Its shifts in perspective and the references, in its size and shape, to
the human body, require the beholder to walk around it.