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Urban Glass

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Tricorni (detail), courtesy of Traver Gallery

Thursday July 3, 2014 | by Lindsay von Hagn

OPENING: Vibrant new work by Davide Salvadore debuts at Traver tonight
FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, News, Opening
New, vividly colored work by Muranese glassblower Davide Salvadore is the focus of a new exhibition at Seattle's Traver Gallery. Titled simply "Davide Salvadore: New Work," the show that blazes new chromatic ground for this artist best known for his sculptural stringed-instrument objects, opens tonight, July 3 and will be on view through Sunday, August 3, 2014. Salvadore, born into a family of glass workers, has devoted his career to reinterpreting and modernizing the traditional techniques and aesthetics he uses in his work. He often instructs students on non-traditional murrini-making techniques and how to employ the tiny detailed pieces in compelling ways. In his own work, he draws inspiration from ancient musical instruments, African symbols and textiles, and the colors of the African landscape. While many of the shapes in this exhibition are not new, Salvadore has added a number of intense new colors to his palette, using less of his characteristic earth tones in favor of bright turquoise, yellows, and oranges. Sometimes these colors fill the entire piece, and sometimes the colors jump out from a background of neutral colored, yet equally intricate patterns.

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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.

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North Wing Galler Forest Glass
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."

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Hirofumi Isoya, We only live, only breathe 2（detail), 2014. Glass. H 67, W 39 1/4, D 1/4 in.

Thursday June 26, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

OPENING: Artists in glass and other media take on a post-Fukushima Japan in New York exhibition
FILED UNDER: New Work, News, Opening
Opening tonight in New York City is a group exhibition of Japanese artists whose work in various media including glass wrestles with a new reality in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that unleashed their destruction on the Japanese coast in spring of 2011 and led to one of the world's worst nuclear accidents. The redefined landscape of the post-Fukushima era is the subject of the show entitled “Duality of Existence — Post Fukushima” and debuting this evening at Freidman Benda. Japan has a uniquely complex relationship with nuclear power as the only nation to have endured a nuclear attack (with the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagisaki in the waning days of WWII in 1945). Following the nuclear disaster and radiation release in 2011, the country struggled to understand the truth of the extent of the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which is considered a combination of natural and human factors, and the government control of information about safety created a firestorm of discontent and soul-searching.

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Barbara Heisler will become the organization's permanent executive director on July 1, 2014.

Thursday June 26, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

GlassRoots interim executive director Barbara Heisler promoted to permanent position
FILED UNDER: Announcements, News
GlassRoots, the Newark, New Jersey, not-for-profit organization that uses glass to teach life lessons to at-risk youth, has a new executive director. The Board of Trustees announced on Monday that Barbara Heisler, who has been acting as Interim Executive Director since July 1, 2013, will be promoted to full executive director effective July 1, 2014.

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The Alastair Pilkington Studio at North Lands Glass in Scotland was expanded this year with a new workshop space.

Wednesday June 25, 2014 | by Lindsay von Hagn

Expanded North Lands Creative Glass campus will host international conference in September
FILED UNDER: Announcements, News
North Lands Creative Glass, located on the coast of Northeastern Scotland in the former fishing town of Lybster, has offered Master Class glass workshops to a growing number of international students since 2002. It also hosts an annual International Conference revolving around relevant themes in the contemporary art world. This year’s conference, titled “The Place and the Work”, will take place on the weekend of September 6th and 7th, 2014, and aims to explore the role of the artists’ surroundings in the work they create.

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Christian B. Singer, current curator at the Clay and Glass Gallery, has decided to step down.

Tuesday June 24, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

Curator for Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery steps down, leaving behind impressive exhibition record
FILED UNDER: Announcements, News
Having spent the past five years invigorating the exhibition program at the Canadian Glass and Clay Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario (just under 2 hours drive from Toronto), Christian Bernard Singer will step down as curator, moving to Montreal with his spouse. The Gallery seeks a candidate to replace Singer by the end of November 2014.

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Detail from Light Drift, a 2013 installation by Justin Ginsberg. Images of his Berlin residency performance were not available by press time.

Tuesday June 24, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

PERFORMANCE: Justin Ginsberg challenges the traditional in Berlin residency
FILED UNDER: Events, Exhibition, New Work, News
Art is communication: the transfer of nonphysical ideas from the artist to viewer through a physical medium. It is an exchange that has long preoccupied American artist Justin Ginsberg, who presented his work to the public during an evening performance at Berlin Glas e.V. on June 19, 2014. Ginsberg’s work “Decadence” was the culmination of his five-day residency at the nonprofit art center in Berlin, Germany.

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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.