A detail from Amber Cowan’s Peach Bloom (2013) wall installation of recycled American pressed glass at Heller Gallery. photo: matt hollerbush
As art collectors from around the globe make their way to the West Side waterfront piers where The Armory Show will be taking place from March 7th through 10th, they may find themselves tempted to stray by a night of performance art featuring glass in Brooklyn, the screening of a documentary film about contemporary artists engaging the history of Studio Glass at the Museum of Arts and Design, or an exhibition opening featuring shards of found industrially-made glass handworked and transformed into elaborately detailed sculptures that reference flowers. There is even a glass-themed event that is part of the official Armory ArtsWeek public program: A night of artisanal food and drink served on hand-made glassware.
At 8 PM Friday night, March 8th, hot glass performance will be spotlighted at the for-profit Brooklyn Glass event “Performance as Medium,” with works by Kim Harty, Leo Tecosky, and Jeff Zimmerman. Harty’s project entitled The One Best Way to do Work, will blend video projection, improvisational dance, and experimental glass technique to create landscapes that are built and remade in dialogue with the other elements of the performance. (Editor’s Note: Harty is the former managing editor of GLASS Quarterly.)
A still from the film The Toledo Workshop Revisted featuring (L to R) Kim Harty, Matthew Szosz, and Amber Cowan. courtesy: the robert m minkoff foundation
At 3 PM on Saturday, March 9th, the Museum of Arts and Design will present a screening of The Toledo Workshop Revisited, 1962-2012 a film documenting a 2012 artist residency at the Toledo Museum of Art that marked the 50th anniversary of Harvey Littleton’s 1962 workshop by rebuilding the groundbreaking furnace and letting three emerging artists experiment and explore the material using similar technology and materials to the pioneers of Studio Glass. The film, produced by the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation, which partnered with the Toledo Museum of Art for the residency, will be followed by a panel discussion with the three artists featured in the film — Amber Cowan, Kim Harty, and Matt Szosz — in a conversation moderated by curator Jennifer Scanlan. The film is being shown in conjunction with Scanlan’s exhibition Playing with Fire: 50 Years of Contemporary Glass at the Museum of Arts and Design. (Editor’s Note: Andrew Page, editor of GLASS, also serves as the director of the Robert Minkoff Foundation.)
Following the screening, from 6 to 8 PM on Saturday, March 9th, there will be a reception for the artists at Heller Gallery in conjunction with “Reconstructions,” the gallery’s first solo exhibition of work by Amber Cowan. Remaking machine-made glass plates into hand-wrought installations, Cowan shatters industrially produced glass and strategically rebuilds the shards into exquisite abstract compositions that reference botanical form. Joining Cowan will be Harty and Szosz, who will have selected works on exhibit at Heller.
Overlapping the Heller reception, from 7 to 9 PM on Saturday, there will be a food and beer event back at Brooklyn Glass. A public program in conjunction with Armory Arts Week, “Brooklyn Creates — An Evening of Design, Food, and an Aesthetic Exploration of the Table“ will feature handmade glass tableware to sample artisanal food and beverages from Brooklyn-area businesses. Admission is $25. More information and tickets available here.