The glass world lost an exceptional scholar and advocate with the passing of Yoriko Mizuta who succumbed to cancer on August 3, 2015. She was 59 years old. As a long-time curator at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo, Mrs. Mizuta was a key organizer of the triennial series of exhibitions “World Glass Now” which ran from 1982 to 1994. Those international overviews helped garner early attention to the contemporary glass art of Japan. Instead of indefinitely continuing those broad surveys, in 1997 she partnered with the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf and The Corning Museum of Glass to present 20 artists from nine countries in an exhibition entitled “The Glass Skin.” The premise was to focus on glass as a literal and metaphorical surface, barrier, and crossing point. In addition to exploring the skin theme the show’s three co-curators hoped to encourage more exhibitions united first and foremost by an idea rather than simply a common material.
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