London-based art and design duo El Ultimo Grito (composed of Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo) describe themselves as post-discilinary. The partnership splits time between academia (Hurtado is a lecturer at Goldsmiths University and Feo lectures at the Royal College of Art), design commissions from a variety of international clients and their personal art practice. In a sense, El Ultimo Grito embody the ways many of today’s creatives move fluidly between the crumbling divides that separate the academic and commercial sides of fine art.
A hallmark of El Ultimo Grito’s work is their small-scale, blown-glass architectural models. There is something nostalgically futuristic about the orbs and pods connected by sleek glass tubes that make up these miniature glass cities. The structures recall the ways the space age was imagined in 20th-century popular culture, though the sleek, glass sculptures are devoid of any elements of kitsch. The artists most recently appeared in the 2013 group show “Keep it Glassy” at the Shanghai Museum of Glass, as well as previous exhibitions at the Museum of Art and Design in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Take a look at some of El Ultimo Grito’s glass work below.