Arts Agenda - Marshmallow snow

Sandy Skoglund has visually distilled the word “quiver” and given it a tinkly voice in her mechanized installation “Breathing Glass” at Fay Gold Gallery. Picture the sight and sound of thousands of trembling glass dragonflies against a deep sapphire sky. Interspersed among those transparent handmade wings are tiny ... marshmallows?
Yes, Skoglund works with edibles; earlier works have featured figures and rooms layered in substances like cheese doodles, peanut butter or jelly beans. Here, the marshmallows mean a snowstorm. Beneath that amazing wall, a mosaic of broken blue glass stretches out over the floor, where three human forms covered in the same dark glass balance on their heads. Attached by small wires to the horizontal blue surface, a sea of teeny white figures are timed to send up their own sustained flutter.
Skoglund’s practice is to construct photographs using live models within her fantastic environments. In the cibachrome print “Ultimate Vertigo,” two real-life figures inside the sapphire dream zone bend themselves into startled falls. Skoglund presents the photo upside down, capturing the disorientation and falling sensation at the edge of sleep.
Commissioned by the American Craft Museum in 2000, “Breathing Glass” reveals the artist’s continued fascination with visual paradox and the surreal world of our subconscious. What will she think of next? It’s difficult to imagine what could possibly follow this extravagant chimera.
Also at Fay Gold, Atlanta artist Michael Dines shows some of his strongest work ever, including several installations featuring a sequence of related small-scale video segments, photo stills and paintings.
Sandy Skoglund’s “Breathing Glass” and Works by Michael Dines continue through Nov. 7 at Fay Gold Gallery, 764 Miami Circle. 404-233-3843. Skoglund will give a slide lecture titled “Everything Matters” Nov. 20 at 7 p.m., at Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center. 404-733-5000.