Contemporary artist Dustin Yellin is captivating audiences with his unique sculptural works that seem to freeze time itself. His signature pieces, crafted from laminated glass embedded with layered imagery and paint, create what he calls "three-dimensional collages" that serve as both pristine archives and precarious glimpses into collective memory. These remarkable works are currently featured in his first solo exhibition at Almine Rech Gallery in New York, titled "If a bird's nest is nature, what is a house?"
Held at the gallery's Tribeca location, the exhibition explores the complex interplay between space, time, nature, and technology through five new glass-layered sculptures. Each piece exudes a quiet sense of gravity while presenting futuristic narratives that challenge viewers' perceptions of history and progress. The works demonstrate Yellin's ability to create visual dialogues between contrasting elements and time periods.
The centerpiece sculpture, "The Consequential Nature of the Simultaneous," perfectly embodies Yellin's artistic vision by presenting two parallel stories that juxtapose technological advancement with historical memory. On one side of the piece, alien astronauts swarm around a NASA spacecraft and particle accelerator, casually dangling their legs off metallic edges while birds circle overhead. The opposite side depicts an ancient Etruscan ceremony unfolding against an earthy backdrop of towering trees and blooming flowers. A taut rope stretched between these contrasting scenes creates the impression of an eternal tug-of-war between past and future.
Another significant work, "Pliny the Younger," continues this theme of conflicting narratives across its complex composition. The sculpture's left side features a dramatic volcanic eruption with lava seeping down into lush grass and trees covering the hillside below. The right side presents a massive cliff face housing a civilization that appears simultaneously classical and futuristic, combining traditional Greco-Roman columns with bold red industrial beams. These seemingly separate environments are subtly connected through the industrial beams that run beneath the earth, creating what Frieze senior editor Terence Trouillot describes as a "time-bridge."
The exhibition's philosophical framework is deeply rooted in questions about human nature and civilization. As Trouillot explains in his accompanying essay, "A nest is made by instinct, a house by design. The nest may be natural, but the house is a container of chosen material." This distinction becomes a powerful metaphor for understanding Yellin's sculptures, which function as carefully constructed containers that determine what is remembered, preserved, and made visible to future generations.
Trouillot further elaborates on the central tension that runs throughout Yellin's practice, writing, "That tension—between instinct and intention, entropy and preservation—runs throughout Yellin's practice. His layered glass works offer a momentary stay against forgetting, embodying the artist's ongoing effort to refract presence through deep, collective time." This artistic philosophy transforms each sculpture into both a survival mechanism and a storage system for collective memory.
The exhibition showcases Yellin's ongoing preoccupation with memory, archives, collectivity, and humanity's relationship with the future. His glass sculptures serve as visual time capsules that preserve fragments of human experience while speculating about what lies ahead. The works create dramatic encounters between unexpected elements, establishing continuity between contrasting impulses and historical periods.
"If a bird's nest is nature, what is a house?" remains open to the public through August 1, 2025, at Almine Rech Gallery located at 361 Broadway in New York. The exhibition offers visitors a unique opportunity to experience Yellin's distinctive artistic vision and contemplate the complex relationships between nature, technology, memory, and time that define human existence.
