Viewing: Museums

William Gudenrath, Amy Schwartz, and David Whitehouse at the opening of the Studio at The Corning Museum of Glass in 1996.

Wednesday May 18, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Looking Back: Amy Schwartz on the Corning Studio as the program she helped build turns 20

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Events, Exhibition, Museums, News

In 1995, a pregnant Amy Schwartz and her husband, William Gudenrath, relocated to Corning, New York, at the invitation of museum director David Whitehouse (1941-2013) to begin the planning for The Studio at The Corning Museum of Glass, a new initiative that would redefine and expand the museum's role as a place where glass was not only studied and exhibited but also made and taught. To take their new positions as studio director and resident advisor, respectively, Schwartz and Gudenrath were both leaving jobs in New York City — she managed the computer system of a law firm on Wall Street and he was a longtime instructor at UrbanGlass (and one of the first to join its precursor, The New York Experimental Glass Workshop). The Studio at Corning opened its doors in 1996 with a block party that included an ice cream truck and guests such as gallerist Doug Heller and artist Paul Stankard. The couple's newborn daughter, Sophia, also attended the Studio's opening on May 26, 1996, taking it all in from a stroller. Twenty years later, as the studio has hosted hundreds of instructors and artists in residence, as well hundreds of thousands of museum visitors making their own glass, the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet spoke with the Studio's director about the highlights of the past two decades.

Thursday April 21, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Corning exhibition celebrates the enlightenment brought by early glass microscopes

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums

Opening this Saturday, April 23, 2016, and running through March 18, 2017, a new exhibition at The Corning Museum of Glass entitled "Revealing the Invisible: The History of Glass and the Microscope" will examine the 17th century figure of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch dealer in fabric who intitally was looking for a way to examine in greater detail the threads in of the cloth he was selling. His interest in lensmaking led him to develop very fine glass spheres that, when installed in a simple handheld device, could reach magnification levels of 275 times. Van Leeuwenhoek would go on to keenly observe and describe for the first time blood cells, bacteria, and sperm, advancing the fields of biology and medicine. Through his regular correspondence with the Royal Society in London, he eventually won their endorsement and his continuing discovery made him a celebrity in his time, even winning an invitiation to visit with the Tsar of Russia. Among the highlights of the Corning exhibition will be an extremely rare original 300-year-old van Leeuwenhoek microscope. Less than 12 are known to have survived, and none have ever been exhibited in the United States.

Wednesday April 20, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Groundbreaking for the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion at the Ringling Museum

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Architecture, Museums, News

This morning, Florida State University president John Thrasher, Ringling Museum executive director Steven High, and the chair of The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation Michael Urette spoke at a morning ceremony to mark the groundbreaking of a new glass art pavilion at the Sarasota, Florida, art museum. Named in honor of donors Nancy and Philip Kotler and Margot and Warren Coville, the 5,500-square-foot addition will open in the fall of next year as an exhibition area to display objects from the museum's growing collection of American and European Studio Glass. The primary donors were present for the ceremony and reportedly used special ceremonial shovels to move sand in a symbolic launch of the construction project.

Tuesday April 5, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Glass designed by masters of Viennese Modernism at Le Stanze del Vetro

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Design, Exhibition, Museums, Opening

On April 18th, a new exhibition entitled "Glass of the Architects. Vienna 1900-1937," organized by Le Stanze del Vetro, will open at this center of glass scholarship and exhibition in Venice, Italy. With the cooperation of the MAK — Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, Le Stanze has assembled key works in glass designed by seminal architects and designers of a unique era of innovation including Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Leopold Bauer, Otto Prutscher, Oskar Strnad, Oswald Haerdtl, and Adolf Loos. Running through July 31, 2016, the exhibition, which is curated by MAK curator Rainald Franz, includes more than 300 individual works notable for their embodiment of the period's restless search for new form that marked the turn of the 20th century through the escalating conflicts that led to World War II. Even before this movement was labeled "Modernism," there was a widespread feeling that established styles were out of date and something new was needed.

April Surgent, Boathouse, 2014. Fused glass, cameo-carved.

Tuesday March 22, 2016 | by managingeditor@glassquarterly.com

OPENING: To celebrate 10th anniversary of the TMA Glass Pavilion, a survey show

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Architecture, Exhibition, Museums, News, Opening

To celebrate that 10th year since its Glass Pavilion opened, the Toledo Museum of Art will survey Studio Glass with a new exhibit opening in April. "Hot Spot: Contemporary Glass from Private Collections" will be on view in the exhibition gallery of the Glass Pavilion from April 15th through September 18th, 2016, and will feature work from North American, Asian, Australian, and European artists. Since it opened in 2006, the 74,000-square-foot Glass Pavilion has housed not only glass exhibitions, but artist studios, demonstration areas, and special museum events. The new building across the street from the historic art museum was ground-breaking in its use of glass not only for exterior walls, but for interior walls as well. Designed by the Pritzker-Prize winning architecture firm of SANAA, Ltd., the unique structure was chosen for its light imprint on the park it occupies, as well as an architectural marvel that celebrates a material so connected to the institution founded in 1901 by industrial glass magnate Edward Drummond Libbey, whose Libbey corporation continues to operate in the city of Toledo.

Tuesday March 15, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Corning to exhibit the lesser-known invertebrate sculptures by the Blaschkas

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, News

The father-and-son team of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, famous for their lampworked glass flowers that make up the Ware Collection at Harvard, were better known in their day for their models of sea creatures. While their flowers are what gives them the most contemporary attention, such as the recent "Lifeforms" exhibition of realistic work at Pittsburgh Glass Center in which the German model-makers are cited as inspiration for a juried show, a new exhibition opening in May at The Corning Museum of Glass will put the focus on their models of sea creatures. More than 70 Blaschka invertebrate sea creatures, drawn mostly from the collection of the Cornell University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, will be on view, as well as numerous drawings and instruments used to craft these finely detailed objects.

Thursday February 18, 2016 | by Andrew Page

The Corning Museum of Glass appoints Susie Silbert curator of modern and contemporary glass

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

When curator, author, and frequent lecturer Tina Oldknow retired in September 2015, the glass world was rife with speculation about who the museum might tap to fill her outsized shoes. Today, The Corning Museum announced that it has selected independent curator and writer Susie Silbert to succeed Oldknow as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Glass. Silbert (who has contributed to GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly) "will be responsible for the acquisition, exhibition, cataloguing, and research of the Museum’s modern and contemporary collection," which the museum identifies as the period that starts in 1900 and runs to the present day. In her new role, Silbert will oversee the exhibitions and programming of the 26,000-square-foot Contemporary Art + Design Galleries, which opened in March 2015 to great fanfare.

Thursday February 11, 2016 | by Geoffrey Isles

A newly-launched online treasure trove of knowledge on Venetian glass is a breakthrough

FILED UNDER: Book Report, Education, Museums, News

If there were a skills test in glassblowing, the ultimate exam would probably be flawlessly executing a 17th- or 18th-century Venetian goblet. In Venice, those that reach the pinnacle of skill in this form (and who have achieved full technical knowledge about glassblowing) are recognized with the title “Maestro,” but, here in the U.S., the highest award is when a member of the small pantheon of American glassblowers such as a James Mongrain would be impressed enough with your finished “cup” to say “Hey! You’re really good!”

Tuesday January 26, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Toots Zynsky chosen for next Specialty Glass Artist Residency at Corning

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

The Corning Museum of Glass is expanding its Specialty Glass Artist-in-Residency program, a unique opportunity for artists to work with glass formerly available only to industry. Today, it was announced that artist Toots Zynsky has been awarded the first of these residencies for 2016. Zynsky will be only the third specialty glass resident, following the inaugural metal sculptor, Albert Paley from 2014-2015, and glass artist, Tom Patti in 2016. A joint project between the museum and Corning Incorporated, the program is expanding from one to two residents per year. Corning, which has developed and patented more than 150 specialty glass formulations, will provides access to its specialty glasses as well as technical support. The museum makes its Studio and collections available to residents.

Friday January 22, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Glenn Adamson stepping down as director of the Museum of Arts and Design after brief tenure

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

In a surprise announcement, the Museum of Arts and Design today made it official that Glenn Adamson, the Nanette L. Laitman Director of the museum since September 2013, will be stepping down from his position as of March 31, 2016. Adamson's tenure of two-and-a-half years is in sharp contrast to his immediate predecessor Holly Hotchner, who held the top position at the museum for 16 years, and the 24-year tenure of the museum's first director Paul J. Smith. Adamson, who wrote a sharp critique of MAD's new Columbus Circle museum building in a 2011 article in Art in America, was an unconventional choice to lead it. During his time at the museum, Adamson restructured the curatorial staff and broadened the focus of the museum to include "makers and making," even initiating a biennial celebration entitled "NYC Makers" in 2014 which included work by musicians and product designers alongside that of artists and traditional craftspeople.

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.