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).

Wednesday May 20, 2015 | by Andrew Page

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Emerging Canadian glass artists vie for $10,000 prize

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Call for Submissions

Applications are now being accepted for the 2015 RBC Award for Glass, which goes to artists working in glass professionally for no more than 10 years, and who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Organized by the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario, the competition's winner will receive $10,000. The jury is made up of contemporary glass artists (there is also a $10,000 award for ceramic artists) and is limited to artists who sell their work, and who have developed their skills "through training and/or practice in the field." The deadline for applications is September 14, 2015, and winners will be presented with their awards at a gala event in Waterloo, Ontario, on November 14, 2015.

Tuesday May 12, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

EXHIBITION: Finalists in Belgian and Dutch art competition on view in Holland

FILED UNDER: Award, Exhibition, Museums, News

Since 1992, Bernardine de Neeve Exhibition has been celebrating new developments in contemporary glass among Belgian and Dutch artists. Taking place once every three years, the seventh iteration of this competition has been narrowed down to three 2015 finalisits who are exhibiting their nominated works at DordtYart, an industrial shipyard turned contemporary art center. The finalist will be annnounced on June 28th.

Tuesday May 12, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Toledo Museum of Art invites visitors to experience “Play Time” with glass and other media

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

“Play Time,” an interactive exhibit opening on May 22, 2015, at the Toledo Museum of Art, promises to be a participatory art playground for museum-goers. The event is based on the idea that a sense of "play" is an important element of everyday life and helps maintain good health (the event is sponsored by a health organization). Depending on the material, the projects will vary in the amount of viewer participation, and will include everything from a climbable net to a giant rubber ball. For glass artist Kim Harty's Glass Mountain project, which involves layering hot strands of molten glass over itself to create a complex single structure, it will be less of an opportunity for hands-on involvement by the general public, but more of a spectacle or performance. For the project, which will begin on Friday, May 22, and continue over the Memorial Day weekend, Harty intends to interact with the audience in a different wayto create her own unique corner of “play.”

Sibylle Peretti, Snowchild II, 2015. cast glass, H 37, W 40, D 21 in.

Thursday May 7, 2015 | by Justyna Turek

OPENING: Heller Gallery transformed into a dreamlike world for Sibylle Peretti’s solo exhibition

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work

A solo exhibition opening this evening of May 7, 2015 in New York City is entitled “The Land Behind” and features work by Sibylle Peretti, a German artist based in New Orleans. New York's Heller Gallery will offer an intimate opportunity to explore the artist’s personal world of fragility and translucency, an environment inhabited by fairy tales and dreams. Peretti's work mines the connection between children and nature, delving into both as symbols of innocence and vulnerable purity. The opening reception will run this evening from 6 - 8 PM and the exhibition remains on view through June 3, 2015.

Wednesday May 6, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: An exhibition in Venice seeks to marry traditional skills with contemporary art

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work

With a reception on Friday, May 8th, and continuing through November 22nd, an exhibition in Venice called “In Glass We Trust” brings together works by virtuosos of lampworking and blowing at the Balbi Art Glass gallery. The collective goal of this presentation of work by seven artists is to show glass at a higher level of abstraction, as well as to provide an open-ended context for displaying exceptional craftsmanship. With the aim of reaffirming innovation in an age-old Italian practice, the show presents itself as an opportunity for established artists to demonstrate their personal imaginations.

Tuesday May 5, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

OPENING: Hiroshi Yamano exhibition “East Meets West” kicks off at Studio Inferno in New Orleans

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, News

Opening on May 9th at the Studio Inferno in New Orleans, an exhibition of Hiroshi Yamano’s artwork entitled “East Meets West” will kick off with an opening reception at 6 PM. The show is being presented as a Japanese artist’s narrative of Western culture’s influence on his life. Having been inspired to work with glass after seeing a Scandinavian exhibit in Kyoto in 1975, Yamano’s experience with the medium was shaped by education both in the U.S and Japan. Although his exposure to glass was split between East and West, he was strongly influenced by his studies with Studio Glass pioneer Marvin Lipofsky at the California College of Arts and Crafts, while his technical skills were honed at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute.

Tuesday April 28, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Helsinki-based duo create comic strip from blown glass vases for Toronto comics festival

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News

Sini Majuri and Ella Varvio, a Finnish duo, create comic art through glass art. Their project entitled "Tulintu" is an ongoing cartoon series where illustrations are presented not in panels on paper, but as drawings on a series of mouth-blown glass vesseles, fusing two separate practices into a hybrid platform for contemporary art. From May 4th through the 10th, their work will be presented at the Toronto Reference Library as part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). Blending traditional glassblowing with the inky, elaborate drawings of graphic novels, the pair is bringing a new twist to each art form with a linear story that unfolds across 15 glass vessels.

Thursday April 23, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Auction kicks off Habatat Galleries big annual event outside Detroit

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Auction, Exhibition

This evening, April 23rd, the 14th MasterWorks Auction of Contemporary Glass Art will be held at an event space about half an hour north of Detroit in Berkley, Michigan. Starting at 7:30 PM, the gallery Habatat Galleries will begin aucitoning off 41 works by notable studio glass artists such as Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, William Morris, and more. A diverse variety of pieces, from the 1970s onward, the lineup sprawls out into all glass mediums (cast, blown, cut and painted, mixed media etc.), from a lampworked sculpture by Ginny Ruffner to cast glass by Stanislav Libensky. To see all the works that will be coming up for bid, click here. This evening's event kicks off a weekend celebration of glass art culminating in the 43rd International Glass Invitational Award Exhibition which the gallery bills as "the largest glass exhibiiton in America," which opens this Saturday, April 25th, 2015, at 8 PM. Featured in this exhibition will be the work of 90 artists from 32 countries.

Tuesday April 21, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

The Glass Art Society establishes Littleton Lecture at the artist organization’s annual conference

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Events, News

The Glass Art Society has announced a new lecture that will become a regular part of its annual conference. Named for the recognized founder of Studio Glass, Harvey Littleton, the lecture will be presented by a glass artist chosen for his or her ability to express individuality in the medium. The inaugural Littleton lecture will be delivered by Therman Statom during the arist association's upcoming conference in San Jose, California, which will take place from June 7th through the 9th with the theme of "Interface: Glass, Art, and Technology."

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.