Toledo Museum of Art invites visitors to experience “Play Time” with glass and other media

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Events, Exhibition, Museums, New Work

“Play Time,” an interactive exhibit opening on May 22, 2015, at the Toledo Museum of Art, promises to be a participatory art playground for museum-goers. The event is based on the idea that a sense of "play" is an important element of everyday life and helps maintain good health (the event is sponsored by a health organization). Depending on the material, the projects will vary in the amount of viewer participation, and will include everything from a climbable net to a giant rubber ball. For glass artist Kim Harty's Glass Mountain project, which involves layering hot strands of molten glass over itself to create a complex single structure, it will be less of an opportunity for hands-on involvement by the general public, but more of a spectacle or performance. For the project, which will begin on Friday, May 22, and continue over the Memorial Day weekend, Harty intends to interact with the audience in a different wayto create her own unique corner of “play.”

Wednesday May 6, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: An exhibition in Venice seeks to marry traditional skills with contemporary art

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work

With a reception on Friday, May 8th, and continuing through November 22nd, an exhibition in Venice called “In Glass We Trust” brings together works by virtuosos of lampworking and blowing at the Balbi Art Glass gallery. The collective goal of this presentation of work by seven artists is to show glass at a higher level of abstraction, as well as to provide an open-ended context for displaying exceptional craftsmanship. With the aim of reaffirming innovation in an age-old Italian practice, the show presents itself as an opportunity for established artists to demonstrate their personal imaginations.

Tuesday May 5, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: Hiroshi Yamano exhibition “East Meets West” kicks off at Studio Inferno in New Orleans

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, News

Opening on May 9th at the Studio Inferno in New Orleans, an exhibition of Hiroshi Yamano’s artwork entitled “East Meets West” will kick off with an opening reception at 6 PM. The show is being presented as a Japanese artist’s narrative of Western culture’s influence on his life. Having been inspired to work with glass after seeing a Scandinavian exhibit in Kyoto in 1975, Yamano’s experience with the medium was shaped by education both in the U.S and Japan. Although his exposure to glass was split between East and West, he was strongly influenced by his studies with Studio Glass pioneer Marvin Lipofsky at the California College of Arts and Crafts, while his technical skills were honed at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute.

Tuesday April 28, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Helsinki-based duo create comic strip from blown glass vases for Toronto comics festival

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News

Sini Majuri and Ella Varvio, a Finnish duo, create comic art through glass art. Their project entitled "Tulintu" is an ongoing cartoon series where illustrations are presented not in panels on paper, but as drawings on a series of mouth-blown glass vesseles, fusing two separate practices into a hybrid platform for contemporary art. From May 4th through the 10th, their work will be presented at the Toronto Reference Library as part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). Blending traditional glassblowing with the inky, elaborate drawings of graphic novels, the pair is bringing a new twist to each art form with a linear story that unfolds across 15 glass vessels.

Thursday April 23, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Auction kicks off Habatat Galleries big annual event outside Detroit

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Auction, Exhibition

This evening, April 23rd, the 14th MasterWorks Auction of Contemporary Glass Art will be held at an event space about half an hour north of Detroit in Berkley, Michigan. Starting at 7:30 PM, the gallery Habatat Galleries will begin aucitoning off 41 works by notable studio glass artists such as Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, William Morris, and more. A diverse variety of pieces, from the 1970s onward, the lineup sprawls out into all glass mediums (cast, blown, cut and painted, mixed media etc.), from a lampworked sculpture by Ginny Ruffner to cast glass by Stanislav Libensky. To see all the works that will be coming up for bid, click here. This evening's event kicks off a weekend celebration of glass art culminating in the 43rd International Glass Invitational Award Exhibition which the gallery bills as "the largest glass exhibiiton in America," which opens this Saturday, April 25th, 2015, at 8 PM. Featured in this exhibition will be the work of 90 artists from 32 countries.

Tuesday April 21, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

The Glass Art Society establishes Littleton Lecture at the artist organization’s annual conference

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Events, News

The Glass Art Society has announced a new lecture that will become a regular part of its annual conference. Named for the recognized founder of Studio Glass, Harvey Littleton, the lecture will be presented by a glass artist chosen for his or her ability to express individuality in the medium. The inaugural Littleton lecture will be delivered by Therman Statom during the arist association's upcoming conference in San Jose, California, which will take place from June 7th through the 9th with the theme of "Interface: Glass, Art, and Technology."

Tuesday April 14, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Chihuly takes over Norfolk, Virginia, with garden installation and opera set

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, Opening, Public Art

The glass artwork of Dale Chihuly is taking center stage this month in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, site of the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Pavillion. “Chihuly In The Garden” at the Chrysler Museum of Art, is an outdoor installation currently on view in the museum’s waterfront garden, where it showcases Chihuly’s "Reeds" and "Marlins" in natural lighting outside of the confines of the galleries. The second place to see Chihuly's work is onstage, where it will be featured in two performances of Bela Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” taking place as part of the Virginia Arts Festival (April 18th & 19th). The opera, which will be performed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and held in Chrysler Hall, will utilize six Chihuly sculptures as set pieces to the performance.

Tuesday April 7, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: Pittsburgh gallery mounts ninth annual “Teapots!” exhibit, celebrating a timeless form

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Opening

“Teapots! 9,” an exhibition opening in Pittsburgh this Friday, will be both a celebration of the myriad ways the timeless form can be interpreted. For each of the past nine years, Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery has held an annual exhibit of teapots that broadens their material focus to include fiber, ceramics, wood, and metal. Over 60 artists' work will be featured in the upcoming exhibit that runs through June 13, 2015. For director Amy Morgan, who has arranged it and invited the artists herself, the iconic shape is a platform ready to burst with adventurous narratives. The works of several glass artists’ reimagine spouts and handles as a lamp, a chandelier, or even an octopus. “All artists are challenged to explore the teapot form literally, metaphorically, narratively or abstractly, while keeping true to their own aesthetic,” reads an exhibition statement on the Morgan website.

Tuesday March 31, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: Susan Glasgow Taylor exhibit at PS Gallery to include live modeling of chandelier dress

FILED UNDER: Events, Exhibition, New Work

On Thursday, April 2, artist Susan Taylor Glasgow will give a talk about her new exhibition at the PS Gallery in Columbia, Missouri. The next day, her ideas will come to life as a live model exhibits one of her signature chandelier dresses for the opening reception on Friday evening. With a focus on her wearable work, Glasgow's talk will explore how she transfers her “domestic” skills of dressmaking into glass pieces that appropriate 1950s imagery. Several of her "Spring 2015" pieces are sewn, fitted glass components stitched together with nylon ribbon, resulting in compact, dressy handbags and colorful slices of cakes. They will be on view through May 30, 2015.

Stacked (2015) by Stig Persson

Wednesday March 25, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: The history and future of Danish glass art and design explored in museum exhibit

FILED UNDER: Events, Exhibition, Museums, Opening

On Saturday, March 28th, the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, will premier “DG15,” a two-part show that covers a 40-year timeline of Danish glass. "Part I" is a historical narrative curated by a former Holmegaard glass factory designer. "Part II," a juried selection, cuts to a contemporary focus of glass as art, expanding on genres and different practices of the material by showing the works of present and emerging artists. A follow-up to two exhibitions at this museum dedicated to contemporary glass art worldwide, one in 1994 (“Danish Glass 94” ) and one in 2004 (“What’s New?...Danish Glass 2004”), "DG15" is a continuing project to document current glass works and compare as well as contrast them with the designs of an earlier era. With over 100 works by 53 glass artists, the exhibition will run through September 27, 2015.

Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, a glossy art magazine published four times a year by UrbanGlass has provided a critical context to the most important artwork being done in the medium of glass for more than 40 years.