OPENING: New Pittsburgh exhibition mines ancient glass for inspiration and inquiry

New movements in art can be understood as conversations with contemporaries, as peers engage in aesthetic dialogues that can reshape the art world. A new project at the Pittsburgh Glass Center facilitated a related but contrasting conversation between contemporary glass artists and their long-departed precursors — the anonymous makers of ancient glass who created extraordinary glass objects two millennia ago, which are in the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. An innovative partnership between two Pittsburgh organizations, the project resulted in an exhibition opening Friday, June 19th, entitled “Out of the Archives and Into the Gallery.”

The exhibition underscores just how much “modern” artwork is in reality indelibly linked to the past, while also emphasizing how much we often lose sight of this link. For the project, 16 artists each chose one artifact or more from the extensive collection of glass works at the Carnegie. After close observation and careful background research, the artists tried to make exact copies of their selected artifacts using the same processes that the original artists used, engaging in an artistic conversation with the past that is deeply rooted in the past.

In making their copies, the artists involved in the project attempted many challenging, ancient processes, such as Egyptian core forming and Islamic enameling, realizing firsthand the challenges that artists of the past were often faced with. According to PGC executive director Heather McElwee, this replication process was one of the most difficult aspects of the project. “A lot is known, but a lot is still guessing,” McElwee said in an interview with the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet when asked why the replication process was so challenging. “Can you replicate something more than 1,000 years later even with all of the technology that we have? That was the challenge.”

When asked about what she hoped for from these “exact” copies, McElwee stated, “I don’t expect them to be exact.” Instead, McElwee said, she hoped that the copies would shine a light for artists and viewers on just how difficult these ancient processes were.

After attempting to make these copies, the 16 artists were then asked to make at least one work that reinvents the original artifact. Rather than a carefully attempted replica, these works were intended to be only loosely inspired by the original works. According to McElwee, this part of the project emphasizes the fact that “all artists are building from the past.”

The attempted “exact” copies, as well as the reimagined works, will all be on display alongside high resolution photographs of the artifacts that the artists were working from. McElwee hopes that by juxtaposing these three interconnected works in the exhibition, they will elicit “awe and respect” from viewers, both for the glass artists of the past and for those of the present.

The exhibition took form in 2013, when the Pittsburgh Glass Center worked with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History for the first time. PGC temporarily borrowed several Blaschka biological models from the CMNH for an exhibition called “Lifeforms”. While visiting the museum, McElwee began speaking with Deborah Harding, collection manager of the section of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, about collaborations. While in archives to see the Blaschka models, Harding gave McElwee a sneak peak at the rest of the collection. McElwee was thrilled by the collection, and knew that other glass artists would be just as intrigued as she was. It was then that the idea for the exhibition was born.    

McElwee had nothing but good words to say about the collaboration overall.”We play well with others” McElwee joked of PGC. “I hope that this project will inspire other arts organizations to join in on unexpected collaborations with others,” McElwee said. McElwee is already thinking about what other organizations PGC could collaborate with next.

A free reception will be held at the Hodge Gallery in the Pittsburgh Glass Center from 6 PM to 9 PM on Friday, June 19th to celebrate the opening of “Out of The Archives and Into the Gallery."

Artists invited to participate in the exhibition include Lisa Demegall, Melissa Fitzgerald, Jason Forck, Jarrod Futscher, Chris Hofmann, Theo Keller, Adam Kenney, Dana Laskowski, Zach Layhew, Mike Mangiafico, Lyla Nelson, Gillian Preston, Travis Rohrbaugh, John Sharvin, Becky Smith, and Margaret Spacapan.

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