Starting with an opening-night preview tonight, the 2010 Art Miami will include three galleries devoted exclusively to work in glass.
Tonight, when the 21st edition of Art Miami gets underway with a preview party, visitors to the city’s longest-running contemporary art fair may notice a subtle but significant change. In recent years, galleries specializing in glass have been all-but-absent among the 100 or so art galleries and institutions showcasing modern and contemporary works across a wide variety of fine arts media. But the 2010 show will include three American galleries devoted exclusively to glass art — Heller Gallery?, Schantz Galleries, and Bullseye Gallery (the only glass gallery in the 2009 Art Miami) — that will exhibit works from nine artists.
When Bullseye Gallery had the dubious distinction of being the only gallery devoted to representing glass artists at the fair, some asked if glass as an artistic medium was making gains in the art world or losing ground. Heller Gallery, representing works by ?Beth Lipman?, ?Sibylle Peretti?, and Josepha Gasch-Muche, had exhibited at Art Miami in 2005 and 2006, before the show became part of the super-elite Art Basel Miami Beach expo which takes place at the same time and turns Miami into ground zero of the contemporary art moment with numerous satellite fairs hoping to tap into the massive art audience descending on South Florida. “I believe it’s a very different show from what it was at that point,” said Katya Heller, director of Heller Gallery. “Before it was moved to the December slot, it was it’s own kind of stand-alone show.”
Richard Whiteley, Subvert, 2010. Cast glass. H 11 1/2, W 23 1/2, D 4 1/8 in. photo: G. Piper.
This wider scope of Art Miami is actually an ideal forum to facilitate a discussion of how glass artists fit within a larger arts context. Bullseye Gallery kept this in mind while selecting artists to bring to this year’s fair, and they settled on kilnformed works by Heike Brachlow, Mel Douglas, Jessica Loughlin, April Surgent, and Richard Whiteley. “The focus at Art Miami is not primarily on the medium in which our artists work,” said Lani McGregor, Bullseye Gallery executive director. “We chose these artists because we believe they bring something new from glass into the larger art conversation.”
Jim Schantz and Kim Saul, owners and co-directors of Schantz Galleries, echoed McGregor’s sentiments. They view Art Miami as an important venue for calling attention to glass art and introducing it to a largely unfamiliar audience. If attendance this week matches last year’s numbers, an invitation to Art Miami for these three galleries could translate into exposing at least 6,500 collectors on opening night and 36,000 visitors to glass art. By showing a collection of pieces by Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra from the last 15 years, Schantz Galleries hopes to raise the profile of glass on the arts scene. “We are taking the steps needed to educate art collectors and the public of this relatively new art medium to the mainstream,” Saul explained. “Lino felt it that this would be an important venue not only in terms of reaching a new audience, but to present his art form in the glass medium with the other forms of art that are primarily not in the glass medium, particularly painting.” To this end Schantz Galleries will feature four large wall-hung glass panels that evoke abstract paintings by Mark Rothko, Clifford Still, and Hans Hoffman.
Whether or not even more glass art will fill Art Miami in future years remains to be seen. McGregor rejects the idea that this year’s show may signal a shift in the attitude of larger art shows toward glass. “I don’t buy the perception that there is an ‘attitude’ toward glass as a material for art-making. Art Miami juries the galleries who exhibit. The presence of galleries considered to have a somewhat material-focused offering—whether that be glass, ceramic, or bamboo—at this fair should put that impression to bed,” she said.
–Grace Duggan