OPENING: Major Michael Glancy exhibition debuts tonight in NYC

Michael Glancy, Inside-Outside (detail), 2010. Cast-glass object, industrial plate glass, copper, and silver. H 9 1/2, W 15, D 15 in. photo: marty doyle courtesy: barry friedman, ltd., new york

Opening tonight at Barry Friedman Ltd. and running through mid-July, iis “Infinite Obsessions,” the largest exhibition of glass and metal sculptures by artist Michael Glancy to date. His first solo show in almost five years, the exhibition will feature more than 35 new work and will be supplemented by a a 228-page, full-color art book published by Arnoldsche Art Book Publishers, Germany that takes a retrospective view of Glancy’s last 15 years of work and features an interview by Tina Oldknow of the The Corning Museum of Glass. Glancy’s work is also the subject of a major feature article in the forthcoming Summer 2011 edition of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly.

Michael Glancy, Inside-Outside, 2010. Cast-glass object, industrial plate glass, copper, and silver. H 9 1/2, W 15, D 15 in. photo: marty doyle courtesy: barry friedman, ltd., new york

Glancy’s work is defined by its surfaces, a complex landscape that mixes blown and plate glass with electroplated metal. The intricate patterning that references microscopic cellular worlds is achieved through hand carving by the artist, who says it’s is favorite part of his process. “The fun part for me,” Glancy says in a prepared statement, “is the meticulous work. With a pair of visors that cuts my reality, really tunnels my reality down into a different plane, [I can get] into a micro area. By occupying my hands, it frees my mind.”

According to Tina Oldknow, “The finished objects—elegant, self-assured vessels grounded on a field, or base plate—to me have the demeanor of a figure in a landscape.”

Citron René, 2010. Blown-glass with foil inclusions and engraved lenses, cloisonné cut copper, and silver. H 6, W 5, D 6 in. photo: marty doyle. courtesy: barry friedman, ltd., new york

Critic William Warmus explains, “Michael Glancy magnifies nature in order to reveal its underlying structure. He uses electron microscopes to inspect the eyes of insects; geology inspires him with its stratifications and crystallizations; and the vortex of randomness and chaos theory not only fails to intimidate him, but provides a template for much of his work. Glancy’s two-dimensional sketches contain his musings on all of these matters, and he has found that sketching on glass is best suited to his ambitions. These become the flat glass panels that form sculptural bases for his artworks, and their structures unfold into and inspire the vessels that sit astride them.”

Michael Glancy’s work is represented in the permanent collections of museums worldwide including the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; The Chrysler Museum, Virginia; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; The Corning Museum of Glass, New York; Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan; Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark; de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; French Ministry of Culture, Fond National d’Art Contemporain, France; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Japan; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée de Design et d’Arts Appliques/Contemporains, Switzerland; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,Texas; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Michael Glancy was born in 1950 in Detroit, Michigan. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and has lectured extensively in the U.S. and abroad. He received a B.F.A. from the University of Denver in 1973 and went on to study with Dale Chihuly at the Rhode Island School of Design where he earned an additional B.F.A. and an M.F.A. Glancy is currently on the faculty of the Metals Department at RISD.

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