Opening: Sixth edition of “Finnish Glass Lives” documents end of glasshouse era but also the floweri

Alma Jantunen, Bonsai, 2008.

On March 5th, the Finnish Glass Museum will open its “Finnish Glass Lives” exhibition, a regular event every five years that seeks to take the temperature of the glass industry in this country that has produced such design giants as Alvar Aalto and Tapio Wirkkala.

When the exhibition debuted in 1986, Finland was home to the Nuutajarvi, Iittala, Karhula, Riihimaki, Kumela and Humppila glasshouses. For the sixth installment of “Finnish Glass Lives,” only Iittala remains.

As William Geary, an appraiser, author, designer and speaker on Scandinavian, European and American Studio Glass explained in response to emailed questions from the Hot Sheet, behind the closures in Finland is “ ...the ability of the Poles, Turks, and Chinese to produce stemware, tableware, and decorative art glass at substantial cost reductions.”

But while the time-honored system of glasshouses employing glass designers to create creative work that was also commercially viable may be breaking down thanks to globalization, the 2010 installment of “Finnish Glass Lives 6” also shows the remarkable vitality and diversity of individual designers and artists working on their own.

As the Finnish Glass Museum puts it in its press release for the exhibition: “Although collaboration between modern Finnish glass art and design and the country’s glassworks has ended almost completely, we are fortunate in that training in glass art over the past two decades has led to results, bringing forth the numerous glass artists whose works are on display in ‘Finnish Glass Lives 6.’”

For proof, one need only to look at the diversity of works included in the exhibition, which will feature objects by nearly 150 artists and designers, some of whose work we are proud to present in the gallery below.

—Apeksha Vanjari