Viewing: New Work

Jeff Zimmerman, Unique crystal vessel in hand-blown glass with mirrorized interior, 2017. L 14.5" W 9" H 8" courtesy: R & Company

Monday July 24, 2017 | by Stella Porter

OPENING: Jeff Zimmerman’s signature fluidity evolves into new chiseled forms

FILED UNDER: Design, Exhibition, New Work, News

Glass artist Jeff Zimmerman continues to skirt the line between art and design with his work included in a summer group exhibition at design gallery R & Company. The exhibit will remain on view through August 17 and is notable for some strikingly fresh geometric work for an artist known for fluid, kinetic forms.

Verena Schatz, Bundle, 2015. borosilicate tubes, slumped. H 53 1/2, W 14, D 14 in. courtesy: Hans-Martin Lorch

Thursday July 20, 2017 | by Sarah Thaw

OPENING: Berlin gallery devotes summer to exhibition of high-level student work in glass

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

Jens Gussek, an accomplished artist in his own right and a winner of the 2015 International Glass Prize in Lommel, Belgium, has also worked steadily as a university professor throughout his career. He currently holds the title of Head of the Institute of Ceramic and Glass Art (IKKG) at the University of Applied Science in Koblenz, Germany. A unique exhibition of work by 11 of his former students is opening at a commercial gallery in Berlin this summer, a testament to the caliber of work Gussek has helped his students achieve. Entitled “subtext glas(s),” the exhibition opens July 22 and will run through September 2, 2017, at the lorch+seidel contemporary gallery in Berlin, Germany.

Cerith Wyn Evans' massive neon work in the Tate's Duveen Galleries engages with viewers and the architecture.

Wednesday July 19, 2017 | by Malcolm Morano

A mile of neon tubes illuminates Tate Britain’s sculpture galleries in monumental work

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, Museums, New Work, News

When Tate Britain unveiled a monumental neon installation by Welsh sculptor and filmmaker Cerith Wyn Evans in Spring 2017, the project was certain to have a massive impact on the field of light art for its sheer scale alone. Forms in Space...by Light (in Time) was produced for the 2017 Tate Britain Commission, which invites contemporary British artists to respond to the museum’s Duveen Galleries, the oldest galleries in England specifically designed to show sculpture. Made from over a mile of glass tubing, Wyn Evans’ bright white neon installation hangs just over museum-goers' heads, arranged to invite viewing from multiple angles, all the while redefining the space and activating the museum's high-ceilinged airy architecture. It remains on view through August 20, 2017.

Pae White, Qwalala, 2017. Hand-cast glass, structural sealant. H 7.9, L 246, W varies. photo: Enrico Fiorese

Tuesday July 11, 2017 | by Stella Porter

Timed to the Venice Biennale, American Pae White’s project mixes architecture and glass art

FILED UNDER: New Work, News, Public Art

American artist Pae White’s newest work, Qwalala, is at once a visceral experience of color and a carefully crafted work of architecture. The outdoor installation, measuring 246-feet-long and almost 8-feet in height, is made of thousands of glass bricks winding in a snake-like form. The public art piece was installed to coincide with the Venice Biennale, and is part of a city-wide series of outdoor exhibitions across Venice, and was commissioned by Le Stanze del Vetro (which translates into “rooms for glass” in English), where it opened on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Noel Hart, Waiting for a twenty eight parrot, 2017. Handblown glass. H 16.5, W 13 H 3 in. courtesy: the artist

Thursday June 29, 2017 | by Stella Porter

OPENING: At Tansey Santa Fe, Noel Hart takes flight in colorful new works referencing bird plumage

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work

Noel Hart’s solo exhibition, entitled “The Rewilding,” will open at Tansey Contemporary's Santa Fe location on July 7th. The Australian artist's latest work reveals an evolution toward more transparency, a greater sheen to the glass, as well as more depth to the individual works. Inspired by his close observations of the bird life in the backyard of his home in the Australian rainforest, which is teeming with birds and is a showcase of biodiversity and species interaction.This daily intimacy with biological diversity has led to increasingly vibrant artworks. “He’s going into a more sculptural direction," said Tilly Badham, marketing director for Tansey Contemporary, in a telephone interview with the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet. The new work also has a glassy transparent finish rather than an etched finish.” Hart, who was showing at Jane Sauer Gallery before it was purchased by Tansey four years ago, sees an increase in scale, and confident approach to color that betrays Hart's training as a painter.

Anna Boothe/Nancy Cohen, Between Seeing and Knowing, 2013-2017. Glass. Dimensions vary. courtesy: the artists

Thursday June 8, 2017 | by Stella Porter

OPENING: Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen continue their collaborative embrace of Buddhist concepts

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

When glass artists Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen come together, artistic accidents are embraced. Instead of tossing aside a mistake, the two consider it important to give value to an accidental creation as part of their effort to create art with a Buddhist sensibility in mind. The artists continue their 5-year-long collaboration in a new exhibit entitled “Permutations: A Collaboration Featuring Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen,” which will have an opening reception at the Philadelphia Art Alliance (PAA) this evening. The two began collaborating in 2012, fusing together two unique styles and a combined experience of more than 50 years working with glass. Although neither artist considers herself a practicing Buddhist, they self-consciously sought to take on on the Buddhist style of thought as a strategy in the creation of their collaborative art, and they consider the work to share the aesthetic approach of Thangka, an elaborately composed Tibetan Buddhist tradition of painting.

Doreen Garner, Big Pussy (From the Back), 2015. Glass, polyester fiber, Swarovski crystals and pearls, hair weave, teddy bear eyes, silicone, electrical parts, condoms, latex, acrylic, rubber, glitter, screws. H 16 W 23 D 16 in. photo: lindsay hargrave

Wednesday June 7, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

SEEN: Doreen Garner deploys glass as abstracted organs in inquiry into abusive medical research

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, Image Gallery, New Work, Seen

Doreen Garner's exhibition "Doctor's Hours," on view in New York City gallery through June 18, 2017, is an assemblage of drawings, video, and sculptural specimens that blend revulsion and attraction to provoke inquiry into atrocities inflicted on African American research subjects in the name of science. Most visceral is the response to the eerily intestinal yet abstract creations made from careful combinations of petroleum jelly-smeared glass, silicone, crystals, human hair, condoms and glitter, perched on shelves at nearly eye-level, spot-lit in the darkened pop-up gallery space on New York City's Lower East Side. Garner, who is often present in the gallery space, plays the role of both artist and surgeon as she invites her audience to become literally one with her art by receiving an actual tattoo, which she will administer either by appointment or for those inspired by their walk-in visit.

Cutclear Fraction, 2017. Blown and wheel cut glass. H 11, W 18, D 3 in. photo: russell johnson. courtesy: traver gallery

Wednesday May 31, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

CONVERSATION: Seeking a certain clarity, Ethan Stern explores the aesthetics of cut crystal

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Seattle-based glass artist Ethan Stern, whose work will be on view at Traver Gallery tomorrow as a part of a new exhibition titled "Cut Clear," is perhaps most well-known for his used of saturated gem-tones in high-contrast, semi-opaque engraved sculptures. This exhibition, however, marks the end of a slow-drifting departure from the chromatic intensity of his previous work. The work in the "Cut Clear" series employs similar forms and textures of Stern’s past work, but without the color that was so aesthetically integral. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet spoke with Stern by phone to discuss the artist’s evolution and his unlikely recent source of inspiration — stylistically dated and aesthetically overwrought cut-crystal.

Laura Kramer with Pyrophyllite (2015) at the opening reception of her Heller Gallery exhibition. photo: gabi gimson

Tuesday May 30, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

CONVERSATION: Laura Kramer mines her archaeologist past in works unearthed from creative depths

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work

On a deep-sea archaeological excavation in the Caribbean, designer and glass artist Laura Kramer discovered that she was perhaps too invested in the aesthetic form of each artifact. In the process of cleaning a find, Kramer labored assiduously over the excavated object almost as if each was an individual work of art rather than an objective relic of past civilizations. Her temptation to influence the aesthetic presentation of these pieces helped her decide not to continue her career as an archeologist.

Matthew Szösz, untitled (inflatable) no.73, 2017. H 12 1/2 W 7 D 8 in. Glass. courtesy: Wheaton Arts

Monday May 29, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

OPENING: Second “Emanation” at WheatonArts harnesses synergy between fabrication and concept

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

WheatonArts in Millville, New Jersey, is preparing to unveil its second “Emanation” exhibition during its long-running GlassWeekend event, a biennial gathering of collectors and artists to celebrate, discuss, buy and sell glass artwork coming up on June 9, 10 and 11, 2017. WheatonArts is a multi-dimensional nonprofit in Southern New Jersey, with programs ranging from a museum of American glass history to programming celebrating regional folk culture. But “Emanation,” initiated in 2015, is focused on the contemporary moment in art through an ambitious program to break down the barriers between fabricators and contemporary artists, something that other programs such as the high-profile Glasstress program by Berengo Studio in Venice don't directly address. Unlike that program, which brings well-known artists to Venice to have their ideas realized by glass masters, the "Emanation" project is based in the studios of WheatonArts' Creative Glass Center of America, best-known for its long-running fellowship program that allows artists free rein to realize experimental ideas at this unique facility. The New Jersey project is careful to avoid the one-way street of becoming a fabrication station. There are multiple efforts to create synergy between the artists and the facility, including during the installation of the exhibition component. The artists chosen for the second iteration of "Emanation" -- Emily Brown, Vanessa German, Michael Joo, Lorna Simpson, Therman Statom, Matthew Szösz, and the group Flock the Optic -- reveal varying levels of technical expertise working with glass, which creates interactions that cross-pollinate between artists approaching the project with different perspectives.