"Presented with improbable dignity in a golden box is a hanging ornament in the shape of the Trevi Fountain that comes with a "complimentary papal blessing." Its roughly shaped details would be dull if the whole thing weren't drowned in glitter. Under the shop lights, this perfect miniature of late Baroque architecture explodes in shine: a beacon promising a brighter future and a better life."
"The material has a resolutely American story. Its beginnings trace back to the late 1930s, when Henry Ruschmann, a German immigrant, patented a high-speed machine for cutting photographic prints, which produced small, glossy cellulose "schnibbles" as waste. When his employees began taking these discarded fragments home to use as artificial snow, glitter was born. Today, Ruschmann's company produces every imaginable variety, from fluorescent and holographic to biodegradable, responding to growing concerns about microplastics."
"It's a cold Saturday afternoon in downtown San Francisco. Despite the weather, the streets are crowded with determined shoppers. I'm feeling rather pleased with myself, having just scored a pair of jeans at 50% off, when I wander into one of those shops that sell nothing but Christmas decorations. After a few minutes wading through a thicket of fake trees, Santas, and reindeer, I'm about to turn around to leave, when I see it."
Glitter functions in visual arts to make marginalized identities impossible to overlook. An ornament of the Trevi Fountain drowned in glitter appears as a shining beacon promising a brighter future and a better life. Glitter appears across contexts, from cosmetics and credit cards to contemporary art. Its commercial origin began in the late 1930s when Henry Ruschmann's high-speed photographic cutting machine produced glossy cellulose "schnibbles" later repurposed as artificial snow. Ruschmann's company now produces fluorescent, holographic, and biodegradable varieties that respond to concerns about microplastics. Histories of luminous materials frame glitter within longer phototropic eras.
Read at Hyperallergic
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