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."

Wednesday April 15, 2015 | by Justyna Turek

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Kanik Chung Memorial Fellowship debuts at Mass Art for Fall 2015

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Call for Submissions, News

The Kanik Chung Legacy Fellowship sponsored by The MassArt Foundation and hosted by the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Massachusetts will debut this fall 2015. Aimed at recent graduates, the four-week residency and grant program is open to any artist who graduated from an accredited institution with a focus on glass within two years of the September 2015 fellowship start date. The deadline for applications is May, 15th 2015. The fellowship is dedicated to the memory of Kanik Chung (1968 - 2013), the glass designer, artist, and educator with a long association with UrbanGlass, the nonprofit that publishes the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet.

Tuesday April 14, 2015 | by Emily Ma-Luongo

Chihuly takes over Norfolk, Virginia, with garden installation and opera set

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, Opening, Public Art

The glass artwork of Dale Chihuly is taking center stage this month in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, site of the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Pavillion. “Chihuly In The Garden” at the Chrysler Museum of Art, is an outdoor installation currently on view in the museum’s waterfront garden, where it showcases Chihuly’s "Reeds" and "Marlins" in natural lighting outside of the confines of the galleries. The second place to see Chihuly's work is onstage, where it will be featured in two performances of Bela Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” taking place as part of the Virginia Arts Festival (April 18th & 19th). The opera, which will be performed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and held in Chrysler Hall, will utilize six Chihuly sculptures as set pieces to the performance.

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Sunday April 12, 2015 | by Justyna Turek

OPENING: The touring “European Glass Experience” exhibit moves to Venice

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

On Saturday, April 18th, The Murano Glass Museum in Murano, Italy, will present the final international exhibition of the European Glass Experience project curated by director Chiara Squarcina. After two years of showcasing the artworks and sketches in Finland, Spain, and Portugal, the upcoming show is considered as the most important one due to larger number of artworks and the historic venue. Almost 80 international artists will present their works to the public. On a special note are the sketches, designed by the artists, which were selected by the scientific committee to be produced by Consorzio Promovetro’s Murano glass masters.The exhibition will run through June 7, 2015, with an opening reception on Saturday, April 17th, starting at 6.30 PM with special conference with remarks by Milan Hlaveš, curator at the Museum of decorative arts in Prague, and Gabriella Belli, director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and it will continues to the official opening at 7.30 PM. (Disclosure: The author Justyna Turek is one of the artists whose work will be exhibted.)

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.