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Issue 157 | Winter

Editor's Letter

by Andrew Page

An American artist based in England, Danny Lane made his name for the punk aesthetic of his glass designs, disrupting the smooth perfection of glass through aggressive live edges orawkward metal appendages. In the 1990s, he started building up layers of water-jet-cut float glass to monumental scale, creating roiling walls to transform public spaces into undulating environments. Though his edgy designs stand in the V&A in London and the Corning Museum, Lane was trained as a painter and came to England in the 1970s to study with stained-glass legend Patrick Reyntiens. Never content with a single style or direction, he has started directly carving mold material, and casting it in glass. The edginess is there in the gestures of the energetic carving, but they are captured in translucent relief , yielding large blocks of glass that don’t tame the artist’s peripatetic energy but enshrine it.

In an interview with Gabriela Iacovano, Lane discusses his need to keep breaking new creative ground. Glass contributor Sarah Lippek introduces us to the unique art practice of Monica Cook, who has embraced glass as a new way  to reveal her subject, visually permeating surfaces to get to their literal and metaphoric insides.  Cook meticulously crafts objects that divulge life’s essential truths, filtered through an uncanny imagination that conjures simian creatures with intriguing anthropomorphic relationships, vehicles made of found objects that bristle with poignant symbolism, and otherworldly contraptions mixing organic textures and shapes undergirded by mirrored glass skeletons.

Artist Tina Aufiero, until recently the artistic director of Pilchuck, interviews the creative director of Laguna B, Marcantonio Brandolini D’Adda, who was so inspired by the unique Pilchuck energy, he partnered with Aufiero to bring international artists to work with Muranese masters to take on the environmental and regulatory threats to the future of the glass economy there.

Emma Park journeys to Denmark’s Glasmuseet Ebeltoft to take the measure of American artist John Moran, who uses the lifelike rendering possible in glass to shock his viewers out of complacency and consider some of the most pressing issues of our day. Not only does he focus us on international crises, Moran also wants to reveal the cynical messaging that manipulates us into accepting gross injustice and brutality in the world

Finally, Shane Fero discusses the unique vision of Cesare Toffolo, who grapples with centuries of tradition in his native Murano as he advances the possibilities of flameworking with innovative ways of working while honoring the past masters in the world capital of glass.

Hourglass

Was Seattle’s Refract glass festival a breakthrough moment, or just another glass gathering? Museum exhibition features the works Richard Marquis held on to; Jennifer and Thor Bueno create glass stones to bring the natural world indoors.

Reviews

Ritsue Mishima at Luhring Augustine, New York; John Brekke and Jane Bruce at River House Arts, Toledo, Ohio; group exhibition at the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Ebeltoft, Denmark; Erica Rosenfeld at Heller Gallery, New York; Dorie Guthrie at Bullseye Resource Center, Mamaroneck, New York. 

UrbanGlass News

The 2019 Visiting Artist Fellows, who will receive yearlong residencies in UrbanGlass’s studios, are Dean Erdmann, Carly Mandel, Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin, and Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves of Studio

Swine.

UrbanGlass

by Toots Zynsky

In memoriam: Laura de Santillana, 1955–2019

Features

Relentless Pursuit

by Gabriela Iacovano

Artist Danny Lane, unwilling to stay in one place artistically or technically, discusses his new “carved casting” process as a way to keep his work’s well-honed edge.

Fanning the Flames

by Shane Fero

An energetic innovator in torch technique, Cesare Toffolo has created an expressive army of miniature figures to animate his fascination with history and the glories of Italian art.

Shock Value

by Emma Park

By colliding religious iconography, pop culture, and symbols of international crisis, John Moran creates unsettling sculptural works that force viewers to engage in urgent issues otherwise buried in our information overload.

See-Through

by Sarah Lippek

A conversation with multimedia artist Monica Cook on her newest work—and her love affair with glass 

Cross Pollination

by Tina Aufiero

Inspired by the passion on display at Pilchuck, an Italian artist and designer seeks to import students’ youthful energy and creative freedom to Murano with the Autonoma project.

Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, a glossy art magazine published four times a year by UrbanGlass has provided a critical context to the most important artwork being done in the medium of glass for more than 40 years.