UPDATED 1/07/2011 @ 9:00 PM
Scheduled to coincide with the 2011 Glass Art Society conference in Seattle is a provocative juried exhibition that seeks to gather the work of artists employing glass who are taking unconventional approaches to the material and their art practice. Organized by RISD and MIT graduates Helen Lee, Alexander Rosenberg, and Matt Szosz, the exhibition is to be titled “Superposition,” a shortened version of the “quantum superposition“ term in quantum mechanics that refers to the ability of a particle to occupy all quantum states at the same time. “We are looking for artists whose works inhabit so many places simultaneously that they might not fit into any of them,” the organizers write in their call for submissions. “We are interested in works that directly address this condition of being in multiple places at once, as well as projects produced by artists who inhabit the fringes of genres.”The exhibition will be held at the Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle concurrently with the GAS conference in June 2011. Submissions will be reviewed by jurors Jin Hongo, Jocelyne Prince, Michael Scheiner, and Jack Wax, all of whom are practicing artists as well as professors of art at the university level.
This exhibition, not unlike the project of fellow RISD alumnae Yuka Otani and Anjali Srinivasan in their ongoing “How Is This Glass?” series of events, seeks to document an important shift in how a new generation of artists is approaching making art from glass. Marrying an almost scientific approach to investigating the properties of the material with a sophisticated contemporary art framing of their projects, these artists share a sense of distance from both the Studio Glass community and, apparently, the fine art establishment.
“The conventional work and commerce associated with glass is limited in scope, exhibition space, and growth,” the “Superpostion” exhibit’s call for entries announcement continues. “There is a general lack of awareness in greater contemporary practice of the fertile growth and development of glass as a sculptural medium in recent years.”
To find out more about the “Superposition” exhibition project, visit the organizer’s Website here. The deadline for submissions is February 11th, 2011, See the complete guidelines for submission here.
It is notable that although the “Superpostion” organizers, like the “How Is This Not Glass?” team, confess to being uncomfortable within the established glass artist community, it is at the GAS conference that they hold their events. The call for entries for the exhibition timed to the Seattle conference reads: “There is a need to create a more visible venue for this work, and form a dialog with the depth and continuity to engage a wider audience.”
For more information, visit the organizer’s Website.
Editor’s Note: The original post incorrectly stated that Alexander Rosenberg held an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, as do his fellow organizers Helen Lee and Matt Szosz. Rosenberg’s degree is actually a Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.