OPENING: Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung foundation embarks on new exhibition series with Erwin Eisch

Erwin Eisch, 3 Glasplastiken, 1968. Mold-blown, painted glass. H 65, W 54, D 42 cm. courtesy: Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, München.

The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation, a Munich, Germany, nonprofit founded by longtime glass-art patron Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung (1927-2011), will unveil a new exhibition series this October dedicated to the creative expression of glass artists. The series kicks off with “Where Are You?” (October 15, 2013 – April 10, 2014), a show featuring the work of the contemporary multifaceted painter-sculptor Erwin Eisch. Since the 1950s, Eisch has been a pioneer of the international Studio Glass movement in Europe, and has often been cited by Harvey Littleton as a key figure who inspired him to pursue sculptural expression in glass in the U.S. The Tutsek-Stiftung’s exhibition spans his better-known work such as the “Heads” series, as well as rarely seen works from his defiant college years. From the burgeoning of his nontraditional sculptural glass forms to his compellingly innovative glass portraits, “Where Are You?” seeks to capture the inspirational charisma of this glass master.

Erwin Eisch, Buddha, 1982. Glass. H 50, W 24, D 22 cm. courtesy: Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, München.

Glass is the medium through which Eisch evokes the intensely personal and the passionate, and in his hands, it becomes every bit as expressive as paint or clay. Many of the works in the exhibition explore the artist’s playing with the terrain between the realistic and the abstract. Usually, his sculptures begin as functional vessels — bottles, vases, and steins anchored in a concrete reality — which he then distorts to create abstracted aberrations that challenge viewers. Thus, “Where Are You?” will likely highlight Eisch’s common fearless premise: that there is beauty in the subverting of function into expressive form.

Erwin Eisch, Der Bruch Ist Die Sünde, 1997. Mold-blown, painted glass. H 58, W 26, D 30 cm. courtesy: Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, München.

Eisch was a founding member of the freethinking SPUR group in 1957 and the group RADAMA, which provoked the Munich art scene in the early 1960s. The exhibition will also include a number of Eisch’s famed series of stylized busts that include Picasso, Buddha, and his good friend Harvey Littleton. By discarding traditional formats of glass, viewers are suggested to believe that Eisch’s artworks are noble for embracing more poetic expressions — expressions capable of communicating broad social ideologies as well as more personal outpourings of the human soul.

—Gina DeCagna