Viewing:

Several participating artists, alongside Deborah Harding, selecting their artifacts from the collection. Courtesy of Nathan J. Shaulis.

Tuesday June 16, 2015 | by Alexander Charnov

OPENING: New Pittsburgh exhibition mines ancient glass for inspiration and inquiry

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

New movements in art can be understood as conversations with contemporaries, as peers engage in aesthetic dialogues that can reshape the art world. A new project at the Pittsburgh Glass Center facilitated a related but contrasting conversation between contemporary glass artists and their long-departed precursors — the anonymous makers of ancient glass who created extraordinary glass objects two millennia ago, which are in the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. An innovative partnership between two Pittsburgh organizations, the project resulted in an exhibition opening Friday, June 19th, entitled “Out of the Archives and Into the Gallery.”

Wednesday June 10, 2015 | by Andrew Page

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Stanislav Libenský Award invites recent grads to submit

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Call for Submissions, Exhibition

The Prague Gallery of Czech Glass has announced a call for entries to the seventh Stanislav Libenský Award. Designed as an international juried exhibition for glass art, the award is open to recent grads of B.F.A. or M.F.A programs around the world, as long as they used glass as an element in their final thesis project.

Lesley Pyke's work Wish You Were Here (2015) took the top prize.

Wednesday June 10, 2015 | by Alexander Charnov

U.K. glass artist association announces winner of glass postcard competition

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, Exhibition, New Work

Earlier this week, The Contemporary Glass Society announced the winners of its annual glass art prize, which corresponded with the week-long International Festival of Glass in Stourbridge, England. Artists were asked to submit postcard-sized works made predominantly of glass. Chosen from the more than 160 submissions received, artist Lesley Pyke was awarded first place, and Evy Cohen was awarded second place.

"Glass: In the Nature of Things" as installed at the Bullseye Resource Center New York.

Tuesday June 9, 2015 | by Alexander Charnov

Opening Reception: “Glass: In the Nature of Things” at the Bullseye Resource Center

FILED UNDER: Events, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Opening on Saturday June 13th in Mamaroneck, New York, an exhibition entitled “Glass: In The Nature of Things” will feature new work by Sandy Gellis, Susan Cox, and Jane Bruce—three New York-based artists who recently partook in a joint residency at the Bullseye Resource Center, the site of the exhibition which will include Sandy Gellis’ Charting Earth, River Sediments and Compounds (2015), Susan Cox’s Cathy’s Memories (2015), and Jane Bruce’s From the Edge (2015).

courtesy: the artist

Wednesday June 3, 2015 | by Alexander Charnov

In Memoriam: Michael Nourot (1949-2015)

FILED UNDER: In Memoriam, News

Glassblower Michael Nourot, who, with his wife, Ann Corcoran, operated Nourot Glass Studio in Benicia, California, from 1974 to 2012, died on Thursday, May 14, 2015 at the age of 66. At the start of his prolific 40-year career, Nourot attended the first session of the now-iconic Pilchuck Glass School, where he worked closely with founders Dale Chihuly and James Carpenter. In his glassblowing studio, Nourot went on the make decorative glass works, some of which were presented to popes and presidents, according to the studio website.

The museum building that will house ZIBA - Prague Glass Experience.

Tuesday June 2, 2015 | by Justyna Turek

A major new glass museum prepares to open in Prague in 2016

FILED UNDER: Education, Museums, News

Europe will gain a major new museum devoted to glass when ZIBA - The Prague Glass Experience Museum opens in 2016 in the center of the historic city of Prague in the Czech Republic. Designed to be an inspiring experience of visual art, design and innovative technology in contemporary glass will present the material with an emphasis on its prominence in Czech history. The museum will connect glass art with its role in design, crafts, technology, architecture, and other creative disciplines across the industry, including education and entertainment. Though the official opening is still more than a year away, the venue is already hosting interesting exhibitions and events in preparation.

Monday June 1, 2015 | by Andrew Page

HOT OF THE PRESSES: Glass #139, Summer 2015

FILED UNDER: New Work, News, Print Edition

The Summer 2015 edition of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#139) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. It comes bundled with the just-published 2015 edition of New Glass Review, a special subscriber bonus at no additonal charge (It is also available at select newsstands, but at a higher cover price). On the cover is a striking work by sculptor Rachel Owens, who employs glass for the same light-mediating qualities that draw so many sculptors. But she is especially focused on its metaphoric resonance. She began to notice broken green glass on the sidewalks of her Greenpoint, Brooklyn, neighborhood shortly after moving to New York after earning an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Keeping its sharp edges intact and giving it shape using a resin casting process, she has made it a primary material in her work, tapping into its associations of consumption and violence—two forces she zeroes in on in her critique of the excesses of our culture of rampant consumerism and its dire implications for the natural world. An in-depth conversation with Owens explores the importance of her investment in making her own work, which brings together concept and material for a powerful, multi-layered effect.

Elaine Miles and Adrian Lander, Glass Doors, 2015. Blown glass, found objects, mixed media. H 47, W 47, D 55 in. photo: adrian lander

Wednesday May 27, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: Elaine Miles subverts magazine styling of glass in collaborative exhibit in Australia

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, Opening

"Glass Doors", opening on June 11th, will be the inaugural show at The Grey Area gallery in Collingwood, Victoria, as well as the debut of work from a new collaborative project of Australian artist Elaine Miles and photographer Adrian Lander. In experimental works dealing with perspective and light, glass installations will be paired with photographs lining the walls to explore the concept of "photogenic glass," or the kind of stylized images that you might see in a home catalog or interior design magazine and subverting them by creating unnerving tableaus.

Work by Nicolas Parrendo.

Wednesday May 27, 2015 | by Justyna Turek

Stained glass artists to convene in Washington, D.C., for 10th annual conference

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Architecture, Events, Exhibition, On Other Blogs

From June 18th through the 21st, 2015 the American Glass Guild will kick off its 10th Anniversary Conference in Rockville, Maryland, and Washington, DC. The event will include workshops by leading stained-glass artists as well as lectures and demonstrations. The three-day event will be preceded by The Annual Live Auction, which raises funds for the James Whitney Memorial Scholarship. Accompanying the whole event will be the exhibition "American Glass Now," a showcase of the most recognized stained-glass works from 2015. On a special note is the special event at the spectacular National Cathedral.

Tina Oldknow in the Heineman Gallery. photo: allison lavine

Tuesday May 26, 2015 | by Andrew Page

A conversation with Corning’s Tina Oldknow on the announcement of her retirement

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

This morning, The Corning Museum of Glass will announce that Tina Oldknow plans to retire from the position of senior curator of modern and contemporary glass in September 2015. Oldknow has been in this high-profile position since 2000. Her 15-year-tenure has been marked by numerous exhibitions, publications, and frequent appearances as a lecturer, critic, and panelist (including those I've moderated). Her visibility, as well as prodigious output as an author and curator, have made her perhaps the most-visible and best-known figure in the world of contemporary art made from glass, and one of its most-enthusiastic proponents. Oldknow's retirement will come just months after the March 2015 opening of The Corning Museum's new Contemporary Art + Design Wing, which she curated, and for which she made several major acquisitions while being intimately involved in its planning and design. Oldknow also wrote the exhibition catalog for the new wing, entitled Collecting Contemporary Glass: Art and Design After 1990 from the Corning Museum of Glass (2014).

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.