Sydney Cash

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Black Diamond (1996), is a suspended sculpture by American artist Sydney Cash.  In the mid-1980s Cash started experimenting with Flutex, an old industrial, patterned glass that acts as a lenticular screen to make a body of optically kinetic work.  Informed by these experiments, he later worked on architecturally inspired line patterns on multiple planes, which create a moiré effect.   In this work glass becomes an invisible architecture that holds up the line.  This series resulted in a New York City MTA commission of sixteen ten-foot high optically kinetic windows for the Queensborough Plaza subway station.

Largely self-taught, Cash was mentored by painter and sculptor Ben-Zion, a founding member of the Expressionist group The Ten (along with Mark Rothko and Adolf Gotlieb).  Sydney Cash’s work is included in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. and Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France.