Galerie Neu is pleased to announce ›Half-Life of Grace‹, the first solo exhibition with the gallery of Berlin-based Canadian artist Jeremy Shaw.
The exhibition continues his sculptural investigations into belief and altered states with a new body of work that incorporates scientific propositions, decommissioned spiritual artefacts and materials with toxic properties.
In the first room are three wall-mounted sculptures that consist of interconnected Klein bottles. A Klein bottle is a four-dimensional mathematical concept, here represented in three dimensions, that anticipates the shape of a single-sided, non-orientable surface that folds in on itself without end. The sculptures are made from flame-worked borosilicate glass. Inside the chamber of each Klein bottle is the residue of vaporized freebase dimethyltriptamine (DMT); a psychoactive compound that can produce intense psychedelic experiences in humans.
In the second room is a wall sculpture that presents a set of 28 facade pipes retrieved from a recently decommissioned Christian church organ built in 1959. The pipes are made of a zinc-based metal alloy and bear traces of age and use in their forms and across their patinated surfaces: bends, dents, fingerprints, scratches, discolouration, engravings, repairs. Inside each pipe is a custom fitted sleeve made of hand-blown Uranium glass, which contains radioactive compounds. Uranium glass was commonly used for decorative glassware beginning in the 1830s and reached peak popularity in the early twentieth century, before ceasing to be produced almost entirely after 1942. Hidden from view inside the pipes are ultraviolet (UV) “black lights”, wired to programmed electronic circuitry. When illuminated by UV light, the uranium glass fluoresces a neon shade of green, visible through the “mouth” of each organ pipe. Sound is emitted by transducers fixed inside the pipes and activated in tandem with the glowing glass, creating an animated pattern of light and sound.
Jeremy Shaw (b. 1977, North Vancouver, Canada) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He works across a variety of mediums to explore altered states and the cultural and scientific practices that aspire to map transcendental experience. Recent solo exhibitions include: Towards Logarithmic Delay, Secession, Vienna (2025); Phase Shifting Index, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal & The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver (2023); Liminals, Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2022); Tracer Recordings, Ordet, Milan (2021); Phase Shifting Index, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); and Quantification Trilogy, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin and Düsseldorf (2020).