The Fall 2020 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#160) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a self-portrait of Corey Pemberton, the cofounder of Crafting the Future, a nonprofit with a mission to expand the pool of artists who work with art from craft media, including glass, so that the field might become more diverse. Since the summer’s protests of police killings sparked a national dialogue about race that has reverberated across society, the art world has been challenged to reflect on how inclusive it has been. In the glass art field, where representation of people of color remains limited at best, it has sparked a necessary and overdue conversation about why racial disparity has persisted in this medium for expression, and what actions can be taken to change that. One focus of this issue of Glass is to illustrate the extent of the problem and to highlight potential paths toward progress, including the notable efforts of Pemberton and Crafting the Future cofounder Annie Evelyn.
Why does glass continue to struggle with representation? Some of the answers can be found in the first concrete estimates of diversity—or lack of it—in the glass field, courtesy of original research by artist and author Matthew Day Perez. In examining statistics on the progress white women have made in the previously white-male-dominated field of glass, Perez suggests people of color may find an instructive example of how a single curatorial appointment can foster rapid changes that reverberate across the field. He also discovered that people of color are a growing presence in college art programs, yet few find their way to this particular medium.
Our other features offer insights and analysis of leading artists working with glass. In an extensive interview, Farah Rose Smith discusses the illustrious career of Dan Dailey with the artist, whose character studies were recently featured in a Chrysler Museum of Artexhibition. Blending the ability to render the spontaneous in sculptures derived from exacting technically precise line drawings, Dailey's work reveals universal truths.
Robert Smithson, famous for his monumental earthworks such as Spiral Jetty (1970), is not as well-known for how frequently he explored his ideas in the medium of glass. Contributing editor William V. Ganis investigates how the seminal artist was drawn to the luminous qualities of the material in so many of the works in his career cut short when he died in a plane crash at the age of 35.
As a special bonus, the magazine comes bundled with the latest edition of The Corning Museum of Glass publication New Glass Review.
All this, plus four reviews, a moving essay about the life and career of the late glass sculptor Howard Ben Tré (1949-2020) by fellow artist Clifford Rainey, and all the latest news in the field.
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