Viewing: Museums

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.

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Sunday April 12, 2015 | by Justyna Turek

OPENING: The touring “European Glass Experience” exhibit moves to Venice

FILED UNDER: Design, Events, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, News, Opening

On Saturday, April 18th, The Murano Glass Museum in Murano, Italy, will present the final international exhibition of the European Glass Experience project curated by director Chiara Squarcina. After two years of showcasing the artworks and sketches in Finland, Spain, and Portugal, the upcoming show is considered as the most important one due to larger number of artworks and the historic venue. Almost 80 international artists will present their works to the public. On a special note are the sketches, designed by the artists, which were selected by the scientific committee to be produced by Consorzio Promovetro’s Murano glass masters.The exhibition will run through June 7, 2015, with an opening reception on Saturday, April 17th, starting at 6.30 PM with special conference with remarks by Milan Hlaveš, curator at the Museum of decorative arts in Prague, and Gabriella Belli, director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and it will continues to the official opening at 7.30 PM. (Disclosure: The author Justyna Turek is one of the artists whose work will be exhibted.)

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.

Tuesday March 24, 2015 | by Andrew Page

The glorious new Corning wing pioneers the use of Gorilla Glass to make display cases disappear

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

As readers of the Spring 2015 edition of GLASS (#138) know, the design of the new Contemporary Art + Design wing at The Corning Museum of Glass is based on the power of natural light to allow artwork in glass to come alive. The issue's feature article ("A New Frame for Contemporary Glass") and back-page essay by the wing's architect Thomas Phifer ("Designing the New Contemporary Wing of The Corning Museum of Glass") reveal a single-minded focus on bathing glass in indirect natural daylight to provide optimal viewing conditions. With architect Phifer viewing the museum wing itself as a vitrine, how to approach protecting the work without interfering with the visual effects so painstakingly achieved? The answer came when the architect, together with the Corning team and exhibit designer Kubik Maltbie, hit upon using the museum's corporate parent's specialty-glass known as "Corning Gorilla Glass," which is widely used in smart phones and tablet computers for its strength, lightness, and optical clarity.

Saturday July 26, 2014 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Jim Loewer’s Asian-influenced bowls and vases featured in museum shop exhibit

FILED UNDER: Design, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, Opening

The Alternatives Museum Shop at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts will feature the intense colors of Jim Loewer's glass vessels in a special exhibition debuting July 31st and running through September 25th, 2014. Based in Philadelphia, Loewer was trained as a painter, but now devotes himself to flamerworked borosilicate glass vases and bowls based on forms influenced by Japanese vesselware. He is self-taught and appreciates slight irregularities in his work which adds to their character.

"Lightness of Being / New Work," 2012 Dennos Museum Center

Thursday July 24, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

OPENING: Howard Ben Tré museum exhibition in Tacoma debuts this September

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

Howard Ben Tré, an artist who redefined the scale possible in glass sculpture with monumental glass totems often accented with metallic foil surfaces, will have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Glass, in Tacoma, Washington. Entitled “Lightness of Being,” the show opens September 14, and has been described as an indoor forest of vertical shapes, featuring towering sculptures cast in glass and bronze, some as much as 8-feet tall. The show seems to reprise work shown in 2012 at the Dennos Sculpture Center in Traverse City, Michigan.

Eric H. Neil, currently director of the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland, will take over as director of the Chrysler Museum of Art in October 2014.

Thursday July 3, 2014 | by Andrew Page

Chrysler Museum of Art announces new director to replace retiring William Hennessey

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, has announced that Eric Neil, currently the director of the Academy of Art in Easton, Maryland, has been selected to replace the outgoing William Hennessey, who has led the museum since 1997. (Hennessey announced his retirement last fall). On October 6, 2014, Neil will take the reins of this recently renovated museum that has a unique focus on glass art, not only in its substantial holdings, but also in an adjacent working glass studio where performance art and demonstrations have been a focus of the institution's diverse efforts to involve the community.

The first gallery is organized around works inspired by nature, and this exhibit will be anchored by Katherine Gray’s 2009 work Forest Glass.

Sunday June 29, 2014 | by Andrew Page

Corning Museum of Glass pushes back opening date for new contemporary wing

FILED UNDER: Design, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, News

Originally set for a December 2014 opening, the new North Wing of the Corning Museum of Glass is now going to open to the public on March 20, 2015. The construction of the ambitious expansion project with a $64 million budget is on schedule, according to a Corning Museum spokesperson, but the additional time is needed for installing the 70 works that will be the hallmark of the new 26,000-square-foot gallery dedicated to showcasing the larger scale typical of contemporary work in glass. "We will begin installing our objects in the galleries once the building is complete," writes Yvette Sterbenk, the museum's senior manager of communications in an email exchange with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. "As the caretakers of the world’s most important collection of glass, we want to make sure we give ourselves time to do this appropriately. Instead of opening in the winter, we set the opening around the vernal equinox – the start of spring – which gives us a great opportunity to celebrate the idea of light, as befits the new building."

Lino Tagliapietra, Angel Tear, 2011, Blown glass. H 33 3/4, W 22, D 5 1/2 in. collection: henry and sharon martin

Monday June 23, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

OPENING: Survey of contemporary glass debuts at Connecticut art museum

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, News

A survey exhibition taking stock of the myriad approaches to glass as a medium for contemporary art opened over the weekend at a contemporary art museum in Connecticut. Entitled "Glass Today: 21st Century Innovations" and running through September 21st, 2014, the exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art explores where the material is going in terms of approaches to technique, concept, and aesthetics. The current exhibition is allso a follow-up to a 2008 exhibition at the same institution that examined the first 50 years of studio glass, getting a jump on the raft of 2012 exhibitions that covered the same territory.

Marie McKee will retire at the end of 2014, after 16 years as president of the Corning Museum of Glass.

Thursday June 5, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

Marie McKee to retire as president of The Corning Museum of Glass, Karol Wight to assume top post

FILED UNDER: Museums, News

After 16 years as president of the Corning Museum of Glass, Marie McKee will retire at the end of this year. Current museum executive director Karol Wight will take on the additional title of president. A newly created position of deputy director of collections and exhibitions will be filled in January 2015 to provide administrative oversight to the expanding museum that will see a new 26,000-square-foot gallery opening this December.

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.