Michael Eckblad
The Melt and the Glow

Michael Eckblad: The Melt and the Glow 

Curated by Emireth Herrera Valdes 

GHOSTMACHINE, 23 Monroe St, New York, NY 10002

December 12, 2024 – January 5, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New York - GHOSTMACHINE Gallery presents The Melt and the Glow, Michael Eckblad’s second solo show, which explores environmental awareness and human geography through a participatory performance inspired by his extensive research on ice and light. Eckblad’s lens captures the ephemeral beauty of light interacting with ice, revealing the delicate balance between nature’s grandeur and fragility.

What began in 2013 as a visual study with sunlight, mirrors, and Arctic icebergs has evolved into a more reflective project that integrates social engagement. Returning to the Arctic Circle in the summer of 2024, Eckblad encountered a landscape reshaped by time and climate change, where the melting glaciers heighten the urgency of his artistic practice. Actions that might have held no connection to scarcity in a pre-industrial era are now unavoidably intertwined with it. This exhibition invites viewers to engage with the shifting realities of our environment, prompting a collective reflection on the interplay between human impact and natural transformation.

At the core of this work is the Midnight Sun–a phenomenon to the polar regions where the Earth’s axial tilt creates continuous daylight in summer. In Svalbard, Norway, the setting for Eckblad’s project, the Sun remains above the horizon for months, offering a unique opportunity to manipulate and extend light. 

In Shore Ice Intervention with Sunlight (Triptych) (2013), Eckblad utilizes a triptych video format to further explore time’s elasticity. The work combines images of light reflections subtly intensified as ice gradually melts. This narrative structure emphasizes the cyclical nature of time, suggesting that fleeting moments can recur and endure. In Iceberg Interventions with Sunlight (Triptych) (2013, 2024), Eckblad uses mirrors to reflect sunlight onto ice, creating the illusion of ethereal, shimmering beings dancing across the frozen surface—a poetic metaphor for the fragile yet dynamic relationship between humans and the environment. The ice, both recipient and diffuser of light, transforms into a living, luminous canvas. This communal act, involving performers holding mirrors, is meticulously orchestrated by the artist yet subject to the unpredictability of nature, with success depending on weather, timing, and collective effort. 

The Melt and the Glow (2013, 2024), a broad selection of studies with Arctic ice and sunlight, situates the entire body of work in a visual exposition of the sky, earth, and water. Moving through disappearing landscapes and chasing luminous spirits, these moments are nearly diamonds, rare like gold, and fully neither, expanding the definition of preciousness within natural elements. 

Participatory performance amplifies the work’s difficulty and impact, transforming the merging of light and movement into a metaphor for social change. Michael Eckblad’s exhibition The Melt and the Glow discloses the relationship between human actions and the natural world, highlighting the Earth’s fragile resilience and calling for urgent collective environmental protection. 

BIOGRAPHIES 

Michael Eckblad (born in Madison, Wisconsin) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. His work spans the performed to the visually formal, often incorporating light and time. Eckblad has exhibited nationally and internationally since graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006. He has been interviewed on NPR, is the recipient of the George R. Bunker Award, the Hilldale Fellowship, and received an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2017.

Emireth Herrera Valdés (born in Saltillo, Mexico) is an independent curator and writer based in New York. Herrera has curated exhibitions such as Invisible Hands at 601Artspace, Jamie Martinez: The Shadow of Colonialism at GHOSTMACHINE, S.T.E.P. at the Queens Museum, Whispers at Spring/Break 2023, Tongue Tide, and 3459' at Flux Factory in New York. In collaboration with the Border Gallery, she co-curated the exhibition Invisible Bodies at Penn State University. She is a Curator and Public Affairs Associate in the Arts in Medicine department at New York City Health and Hospitals. Herrera holds an M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and a B.A. in Architecture from the Autonomous University of Coahuila.

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CREDITS The artist sincerely thanks the multitude of helpers and performers who have made this work possible:

Aaron O’Connor, Producer Sarah Gerats

Sergei Chernikov

Brittany De Nigris

Amanda Thackray

Karl Erickson

Alia Malley

Kate Sheridan

Chia-ling Lee

Tom McCormack

Mia Feuer

Blane de St. Croix

Taylor Swan

Cori Marquis Leila Amineddoleh

Emireth Herrera Valdés

Jason Bahling, Jonathan Wohl, and Andrew Dayton of The Notion Collective

The captains and crews of the ships Antigua (2013) and Ortelius (2024)

All companions and fellow residents with The Arctic Circle residency in June 2013 and August 2024, especially including: