Experience the groundbreaking work of Swiss contemporary artist Simon Berger, renowned for his innovative glass sculptures and portraits created with precision hammering techniques. Explore a…
Contemporary glass artist Simon Berger's unique sculptural language explores the depth of his material through striking and cracking the glass he works on with a hammer. The pane of glass is both the supportive structure of his artwork, as well as the visualization of his artistic handwriting, playing with transparency of the material. The closer and briefer the blows, the stronger the contrasts and the shades. In his hands, the hammer is not a tool of destruction, but rather an amplifier of effects.
Simon Berger began his artistic explorations by painting portraits with spray cans before turning to other mediums. A carpenter by training, his natural attraction to wood inspired his first artistic creations within his studio.
A lover of mechanics, he also spent plenty of time working with used car bodies to create assemblages. It was while pondering what to do with a car windshield that his idea for working with glass was born. “Human faces have always fascinated me”, explained Simon. “On safety glass, these motifs come into their own and magically attract the viewer. It is a process of discovery from abstract fogging to figurative perception.”
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I've noticed that 2D artists/non-sculptors who engage in strange mediums or techniques generally only make realistic closeup portraits of people. I saw the headline, thought "neat, but I bet he just makes normal expressionless faces." Opened the page and it seems like that's the vast majority of his work. As an artist myself, I'm always like ehhhhh when I see this. Feels a bit like the kind of stuff you see for sale in tourist areas.
The technique is cool though.
Perhaps they find more acceptance due to the effects of pareidolia, where the viewer is more inclined to say, “Oh yeah, I see it - that’s a face!”
By nandomrumber 2026-02-266:381 reply The introduction on that Wikipedia article needs to be updated to include digital compression artefacts.
Cheap 4K dash cams are awesome at creating the wackiest noise in suboptimal lighting conditions.
By harimau777 2026-02-2611:45 Some image artifacts are even common enough to have entered pop culture. For example, if you are a fan of Dungeon Meshi, Marcille's "Sky Fish" familiar is inspired by cryptids stemming from the "rods" that often show up in pictures.
By WesolyKubeczek 2026-02-269:511 reply Once you stretch boundaries thin enough, you could argue that all art is about inducing pareidolia. After all, it’s all just cracks on glass/smears of paint on canvas and so on. It matters little whether there was artistic intent or not, if the result looks like a face, it looks like a face. ;-)
By mejutoco 2026-02-2615:24 Figurative art is only part of the vast possibilities of art.
By mstade 2026-02-2612:50 I saw some of these works in Stockholm and then in Miami, and you 100% captured my thoughts. Cool technique well utilized, but beyond that I'm not sure I felt any particular connection to the art. It just felt bland.
That's ok, not all art affects all people the same and to me that's the wonderful thing about art – it really is ok to have different opinions and taste, no one is wrong. I'll just move on to the next piece and hopefully enjoy that more. :o)
yeah it’s definitely a genre in itself.
It’s like there are 2 axes: - cool technique and - cool picture. The second is way more important than the first, which is way painters are still on top of the 2D art world.
Some people can do both though. And i’d say even in these cases the art world tend to dismiss the weird technique as gimmicky.
By yojo 2026-02-2615:18 There are a few modern artists who mix cool techniques to great results and get recognized. Olafur Eliasson and James Turrell come to mind.
Damien Hirst is a more polarizing third contender.
Edit: also Yayoi Kusama
And the reason 'cool picture' is way more important than 'cool technique' is because the technique is essentially no longer part of the art / picture at completion.
You've just got the sausage, and there's (not necessarily) any indication of how it was made inherent to the sausage - even if the way the sausage is made is cooler than the sausage itself.
(that analogy got tiresome quickly)
By hn_throwaway_99 2026-02-267:06 I don't understand this at all in respect to the actual topic at hand. The "cool technique" in this case is creating 2D art by means of cracking glass. It's quite obvious at completion, just by seeing the art, what the general technique was. It's not like people are mistaking this for a watercolor.
By steezeburger 2026-02-264:41 I'm not sure it's so fitting. You can see hoe this technique was done and how it's different from painting. Or like, a portrait made of pennies, or string and nails, etc, etc.
By baby 2026-02-265:21 Another way to see this is that most obsessed artists live within constraints they created years ago, and their art stands out as it is something never seen before: the best someone has ever done within the constraints they took decades to explore and master.
By 4dregress 2026-02-266:40 You may still end up with the sausage but the meticulously prepared one will most likely be the most delicious.
By NedF 2026-02-265:40 [dead]
Spot on. Interesting methods always seem to be popular with engineering folks. But results are soulless.
By stinkbeetle 2026-02-271:26 All commercial art is soulless. Music, movies, professional painting and sculpting.
One thing I'm hoping for if AI destroys much of the value of soulless art, is human actual art reverting to the motivation of the desire people have to share things with those they love.
By bartread 2026-02-2617:04 I also properly hate this guy's website. Too much clicking around and exploring to find good, in focus, photographs of examples of his work. Maybe I should blame OP for not submitting a page with examples of the work but, whatever, I did not enjoy the hunting and pecking.
By cs702 2026-02-2616:28 > I saw the headline, thought "neat, but I bet he just makes normal expressionless faces."
In this case, that's not true. See the examples shared by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47163837 on this page.
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47162666 for context.
By kraig911 2026-02-2615:24 As someone who also loves to paint esp portraits I was wondering in your opinion what looks like a good portrait? Because every time I go out on a limb and do what I think is neat the subject/audience seems less than interested. It's like people like a good photo.
By miramba 2026-02-267:29 This feels like something Oscar from Duolingo could say.
"Normal expressionless faces" to quote OP have been a big part of the foundation of "art" for ages. Hammered in marble, paint brushed on canvas, made with tiny mosaic pieces, and any other possible medium. What makes "hammered in glass" shallow and uninspired compared to any of those?
The exhibitions section [0] has examples of abstract pieces of art too.
I’ll understand what? We have a plethora of established artists of incontestable value. If I need to check one out in particular to understand expression, excitement, inspiration, then all others have failed. You name exactly one. Why not Rodin? Or Henry Moore?
I bet nobody here saw the art from the submission in person but look at how many opinions around.
Every time I hear armchair critique of someone else’s “boring uninspired art” and “expressionless faces”, or “art connoisseurs” giving snippets of wisdom, I know they’re fuller of hot air than a desert on a hot summer day.
By portly 2026-02-2618:24 The examples you name are also fine. Just stuff that makes you feel something.
I'll kindly disagree, and put out an offer.
If it's shallow and uninspired, why not make a better version? The medium is freer than Free Software. A sharpened hammer, a pane of laminated glass, and some time.
How hard can it be?
> The medium is freer than Free Software
$$$$$ for supplies, you could probably take up oil painting for cheaper.
A simple hammer you'll sharpen, maybe a bog standard angle grinder. These are the cheap ones, and all you need.
Bigger panes of laminated glass is expensive, but you can start small, no? I'd go to the local glass shops and ask for their scraps, for example.
However, the point is not the cost of the supplies, but supporting the argument by putting out something better than the thing being criticized.
By iainmerrick 2026-02-2610:54 They said "shallow and uninspired" but that's separate from "requires immense skill and patience". The point is, whether or not the process is cool and impressive, is the end product really very interesting?
It can be valid to criticize something as uninspired even if you're not capable of doing it yourself. Movie critics would have a hard time otherwise.
In this case I wouldn't be quite as dismissive, personally. But if you've seen one, have you seen them all? Probably yes.
By ErroneousBosh 2026-02-2616:12 > Bigger panes of laminated glass is expensive, but you can start small, no? I'd go to the local glass shops and ask for their scraps, for example.
Go to a scrapyard and see if you can pull the windscreen out of a car. It's just a contaminant when it goes in the fraggie anyway.
By ChrisMarshallNY 2026-02-2610:561 reply Like when someone that clearly needs more exercise, is yelling at a sports star to “not be lazy,” or “practice more.”
It can easily be said that this makes no sense, because the yeller has no idea of the tremendous work that even the lowest-tier athletes put into their vocation.
On the other hand, they are a “customer” of the athlete, and have a “right” to criticize the “product.” They are probably out of line, suggesting root causes and solutions, but they aren’t out of line for complaining about their experience with the product.
I wrote a short piece about this mindset, some time ago: https://littlegreenviper.com/problems-and-solutions/
The athlete is in a no way a product a dude behind the tv bought. Tv watching guy is not a customer of the artist. Like, first of all, the dude behind the tv did not paid the athlete nor the athlete employer.
> but they aren’t out of line for complaining about their experience with the product.
They are just as asshole, as much valid as me mocking random people on the street.
I agree with that last part but the people watching the athlete are definitely the customer. The athlete gets paid because people watch them on tv (and in person). If no one watched them on tv, then they quite literally would not get paid. Their employer is selling their talent and abilities (the product) to the watchers (the customers). The watchers are literally paying the athlete and the athletes employer, if not through subscriptions or tickets, then just by watching the ads on tv.
By watwut 2026-02-2711:38 1.) It is not even true that all athletes you watch on TV would be professionals. A lot of them are supposed amateurs, not getting actual salary at all.
2.) Like common, it is even fairly common for people to pay literally nothing to anyone and watch professional sports for free.
3.) Those who are paid are NOT paid by the watchers at all. Not even by the TV itself. Their actual employers are multiple steps away from broadcaster.
> if not through subscriptions or tickets, then just by watching the ads on tv.
That makes them products themselves. They are not paying by watching ads, their time is sold to the real customer who is whoever paid for ads.
By jerf 2026-02-2615:03 There is no obligation for a critic to produce better work than what is being criticized and it is a cheap and dishonest rhetorical tactic to imply otherwise.
I 100% guarantee you have criticized things without trying to produce better work yourself. It is a deeply dishonest standard.
By norome 2026-02-269:42 agree and I'd venture we tend to see more uninspired art because most success in the art world is more about business acumen than experimentation and uniqueness.
> Feels a bit like the kind of stuff you see for sale in tourist areas.
Yeah, art is only real if it is unpopular and elicits a “I don’t get it” /s
Art is only interesting if it elicits an emotional response in the viewer. Otherwise it is illustration.
And the wonder of it is that we can all have different responses to the same thing. (The Mona Lisa is a waste of canvas and oil - a hill I will die on).
By Zobat 2026-02-269:16 > The Mona Lisa is a waste of canvas and oil - a hill I will die on
Seems like Mona Lisa elicits an emotional response in you as a viewer ;)
I get what you're saying though. I always "correct" people that claims some piece of music is "bad", there's no bad music, only music you don't like.
By g8oz 2026-02-2614:41 I cynically believe that many people will force themselves into having an emotional response if the art piece matches with what they understand as having currency with the type of people they seek to emulate and the rarified scene they want to be a part of.
By ginko 2026-02-2611:41 The Mona Lisa is a panel painting and doesn't use canvas.
By F-W-M 2026-02-269:23 I think I read here on hackernews that the Mona Lisa doesn't look at all like it did when it was freshly made. If I look at the restored copy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_(Prado)#, I at least find the silk very nice.
By smusamashah 2026-02-269:27 In Exhibition section Lasting Moment is showing 4 glass sheets standing parallel to each other.
It looks like the cracks are same on all 4 sheets. That is amazing. Their are only 4 pictures though. I want to see them more closely.
Edit: while looking for more photos found more work here. The 3D effect by layering sheets is so cool. https://aurum.gallery/simon-berger/ I like the sphere more than the skull.
Edit: Found some more pictures of those sheets with same cracks in his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/C_34-G0K-Qm/?igsh=MWtzY2FydWQxa2...
Reminds me of the artist that shipped glass cubes via FedEx, letting the box throwers make the art for him.
https://museemagazine.com/features/2018/10/15/walead-beshty-...
By nkrisc 2026-02-2611:39 This is a refreshingly pragmatic approach to modern art and I love it.
By rippeltippel 2026-02-263:57 Minecraft art
I was hoping it would look cool but they just look lifelelessly damaged. Meh.
By nkrisc 2026-02-2611:40 He says that he encourages the pieces to only transported by re-shipping them through FedEx, so as they change owners and travel the world they will become progressively more damaged.
sorry, this isn't "art" because it actually conveys information. art has to be useless.
By WaitWaitWha 2026-02-263:251 reply I cannot tell if this is /s or real. there is an entire genre of art that specifically about functionality - functional art. Chairs, tables, buildings, vases, textile, and so on can be beautiful art yet functional.
My favourite example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giger_Bar
By nomel 2026-02-266:33 Sheesh, this makes me realize how boring "modern" interiors are, even though 3d printing makes means this is now much easier.
By slumberlust 2026-02-263:24 What an artful comment.
By nkrisc 2026-02-2611:38 This is the worst take on “it’s not art” I’ve ever read. You can look through any art history textbook and it’s filled to the brim with classic art that convey lots of information.
