The Spring 2022 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#166) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a work by Ché Rhodes, artist and head of the glass program at the University of Louisville, who was instrumental in the exhibition "Crafting the Vernacular" now on view at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. Rhodes had been discussing a solo exhibition with KMAC curator Joey Yates, and he was inspired to propose expanding it into a group show featuring work by artists of color working with glass. Yates agreed, and the result is among the first museum exhibitions focusing exclusively on Black glass artists. The cover article's author, director emeritus of the Speed Art Museum Peter Morris, states that with this exhibition, we "are witnessing a new moment in contemporary glass."
One of the artists in the "Crafting the Vernacular" exhibition is Leo Tecosky, whose work is discussed in the companion article on his 2021 Rakow Commission work recently unveiled at The Corning Museum of Glass. Glass correspondent Sadia Tasnim discusses Tecosky's efforts to develop a new language in glass, and interviews the New York City-based artist on his diverse inspirations, which range from hip-hop to Islamic calligraphy, from his international travels to the teachings of a Black Muslim group who call themselves theFive Percenters.
Our newest contributing editor Emma Park visited Venice to cover an important exhibition looking at the contributions of Tapio Wirkkala and Toni Zuccheri to the legacy of Venini & Co., each bringing his own design sensibilities to lead the most famous Muranese glasshouse into a more international era.
With the Glass Art Society set to celebrate its 50-year anniversary at its upcoming annual conference in Tacoma Washington, (its first in-person big event since the start of the pandemic), Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez investigates how a gathering of a small group of curious experimentalists in 1971 laid the foundations of what GAS has grown into today -- a bold artist organization with an increasingly international reach.
In honor of 2022 being designated the International Year of Glass by the United Nations, we kick off the first of our year-long series "Glass Around the World" with a look at Ngwenya Glass, an eco-concsious glass producer in Southern Africa.
All of this, plus four reviews and the latest news from the international world of glass art.
Become a subscriber and don't miss a single issue.