Meg Webster (American, b. 1944), Glass Spiral, 1990/2024, 1/4" tempered glass, aluminum, silicone, irrigation system, soil and plants, 88 x 532 x 552 inches © Meg Webster, Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Image courtesy of Michael Lagerman and Sculpture Milwaukee.
Meg Webster is a multimedia artist closely affiliated with Post-Minimalism and the Land Art movement of the 1970s. Her practice has long been guided by an environmentalist approach to advocating for conserving and celebrating nature. Her highly structural, often minimal, sculptures grapple with ecological degradation and devastation. The works employ abstracted forms of water, earth, minerals, and plant life through use of hard geometric forms, including cones, mounds, spheres, spirals, pyramids, and prisms. Including a native perennial garden generates micro-ecosystems that enrich the local flora of the otherwise urban environment.
Glass Spiral emphasizes the fragility and resilience of nature. It invites viewers into the confines of its interior, distorting perceptions of space, depth, and distance, while simultaneously offering refuge, momentary respite, and protection from its external environment.