OPENING: Jeff Zimmerman takes on the temporal in latest gallery exhibition

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Glassblower Jeff Zimmerman will showcase his recent explorations of water and time, ongoing themes in his career, at an opening this evening at R & Company, a design-art gallery in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood. In both functional and sculptural works, Zimmerman investigates natural processes -- a splash of water, the formation of ice crystals, the movement of ice floes.

Tuesday January 12, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Gene Koss debuts new work at Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News, Opening

At his new exhibition "From a Distance," which opened on Saturday, January 9, Gene Koss unveiled a wide range of mixed-media work. The new glass-and-metal works at Arthur Roger Gallery in downtown New Orleans reference two very different environments — the majestic rural landscape of Wisconsin farmland where Koss grew up, and the more vulnerable Mississippi River Delta ecosystem, where man-made engineering vies with the unruly river and gulf waters that are held at bay, imperfectly, through an elaborate system of levees and dams.

Wednesday January 6, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: April Surgent exhibition debuts at the Museum of Northwest Art on Saturday

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, New Work

Opening January 9, 2016, April Surgent's exhibition at the Museum of Northwest Art entitled "Observations of Life on Ice" employs the age-old practice of cameo glass engraving to comment on and investigate very contemporary issues of our environment in flux. The La Conner, Washington, museum's mission is to connect "people with the art, diverse cultures and environments of the Northwest." The Seattle-based artist's newest work is based on her eight-week residency in the Antarctic during 2013, when she was admitted to the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artist and Writers Program. (Disclosure: GLASS Quarterly editor Andrew Page moderated a discussion at the 2015 SOFA Expo in Chicago in which Surgent was a panelist.)

Artist Ben Young at the Kirra Galleries booth at SOFA Chicago.

Tuesday December 1, 2015 | by Joanne Kim

A conversation with New Zealand glass artist Ben Young

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, New Work

The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet caught up with Ben Young, a self-taught artist from New Zealand who was a recent finalist for the Ranamok Glass Prize. Represented by Kirra Galleries at the recent Chicago SOFA 2015 art fair, Young started out as a boat builder, but discovered glass a dozen years ago. He says he's found glass the perfect medium for his creative expression.

Thursday November 19, 2015 | by Andrew Page

3 Questions for .... Anne Petters

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?Anne Petters: I'm currently a visiting artist in the glass department at Southern Illinois University for the Fall 2015 semester. Being in the academic environment with access to so many art studios offers an incredibly valuable opportunity to reflect on my sculptural work, and to find new facets to a specific pate de verre printing technique I've been developing and teaching in recent years. I discovered this process on the search for a translation of a specific image I had in my mind, trying to picture and freeze transient moments of thought for my “Disegno” series in 2011.

Tuesday November 17, 2015 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: The new Glass Wheel Studio expands art offerings in Norfolk, Virginia

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

The Norfolk, Virginia, glass scene, dominated by the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio, just got bigger with last weekend's opening of a brand-new multi-media art center last Saturday evening, November 14. Unlike the museum's program of demos and performances, the Glass Wheel Studio aims to "serve as an incubator for extraordinary ideas and aim to encourage artists across all disciplines to pursue and elevate their craft." (Disclosure: Glass Wheel Studio is an advertiser in GLASS Quarterly magazine.) As its name implies, the organization puts a special emphasis on work in glass but is open to artists working in all materials. The 8,500-square-foot facility features two rotating galleries and affordable artist studios. Each year, it will provide 13 visual artists an immersive studio practice program, which provides opportunities "for research, experimentation, and professional development." The inaugural exhibition features the glass work of Philadelphia-based artist Jon Goldberg, founder of East Falls Glassworks. Also featured is work by Natalie Abrams and Liz Berk. The

The Rakow Commision work Tantric Object (2015) by Swiss studio jeweler Bernhard Schobinger features glass skulls crafted from the bottom of antique poison bottles.

Thursday November 12, 2015 | by Andrew Page

MUSEUMS: Corning to unveil subversive jeweler’s Rakow Commision work today

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, News

Today, The Corning Museum of Glass will unveil its 30th Rakow Commission, the first to be awarded to a jeweler and the first new work to be added to the collection of the museum's Contemporary Art + Design Wing since the March 2015 opening. The work is titled Tantric Object by the avant-garde Swiss jeweler Bernhard Schobinger. It is a necklace of tiny skulls made from the bottom of green poison bottles. Gold laquer adds a decorative flourish to this provocative neckwear, and the word "GIFT" is evident in one of the glass pieces -- which in German means "posion." In a provocative 45-year career, the artist-jeweler has built his reputation on his use of castaway materials such as broken glass and ceramic shards, worn-out erasers, and even the elastic that once kept underwear from falling down.

Wednesday November 11, 2015 | by Andrew Page

3 Questions for ... Jean-Simon Trottier

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?Jean-Simon Trottier: For the past two years, I've been working continuously on a collaborative project with my partner Montserrat Duran Muntadas. We have created several sculptural installations that explore the issues of immigration and borders. For this project, we were especially inspired by seeds of various plants as metaphorical symbols of freedom. Because the organic forms of our sculpture were inspired by nature, this especially made our technical research an enriching one, while giving us pieces that surpassed our expectations.

Tuesday October 20, 2015 | by Andrew Page

Two new Dan Graham installations in Paris embrace urban flux

FILED UNDER: Announcements, New Work, News, Public Art

Through October 25th, the busy Place Vendome, ground zero for Parisian fashion boutiques, will feature two new works by American sculptor Dan Graham, whose architectural installations employ partially mirrored surfaces and refraction to juxtapose viewers with their surrounds and one-another. Two Nodes (2015) features two mirrored cylinders that mix reflectivity with transparency to create a constantly shifting environment that distorts bodies, and overlaps images. In an adjacent outdoor work, Passage Intime (2015), Graham invites users to traverse a narrow passageway, which also provides shape-shifting reflections to viewers, as well as draws narrow boundaries of shared public space.

Tuesday October 20, 2015 | by Andrew Page

3 Questions For ... Doreen Garner

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work

Anyone who dismisses the material of glass as too beautiful or perfect to communicate signifcant content or emotion hasn't encountered Doreen Garner's raw mixed media work, which cultivates strong reactions ranging from from desire to disgust. Walk into an exhibit of this 2014 graduate of RISD's MFA program and you know this is sophisticated work that plows deep psychological territory, confronting viewers with sometimes-disturbing works that take on the human body, sexuality, race, gore, and objectification. By adding unexpected materials such as latex or petroleum jelly as well as organic substances such as human hair, this Philadelphia native cannily pursues her agenda of peeling away layers of distance, digging down into a primordial strata of experience and consciousness. There's no shortage of concept either, with her recent work confronting the assault on black bodies in the name of medical research. The work's boldness is no surprise to those who saw the artist's 2014 "Observatory" exhibition in which she exhibited herself as a specimen unclothed in a glass box covered in glitter and stuffed condoms. There's nobody in glass taking on these issues in this manner, or with this level of risk-taking. GLASS recently interviewed Garner via email about where her work is going and where it can be seen.

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.