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Dale Chihuly: Installations
2/7/1998 - 4/26/1998
Dale Chihuly: Installations, organized by the Norton Museum of
Art in cooperation with the Seattle Art Museum, opens on February 7
and runs through April 26,1998. Filling 6,000 square feet of space
and six galleries, the exhibition presents 10 - 12 installations
designed specifically for the interior architecture of the Norton
Museum of Art. The exhibition is generously underwritten in part by
Northern Trust Bank.
Dale Chihuly: Installations turns the museum's space into a
theatrical experience as the visitor is led from one installation to
the next. Works from eight of Chihuly's series ranging from the
exquisitely delicate "Sea Forms" to his mysterious and nearly
celestial orbs, the Nijima Floats are on view, in addition to his
latest and most experimental series, the chandeliers, his strongest
sculptural statement to date. "I've always been interested by the
way spaces work. I conceive of my work in terms of how it interacts
with the space around it. This exhibition allows me to play with
those concepts on a large scale," explains Chihuly.
Chihuly is known for his constant experimentation with the glass
blowing process. His fascination with glass began as a student
studying interior design at the University of Washington. In a
weaving class, the teacher, Doris Brockway, required students to
incorporate a material foreign to fiber. In response Chihuly wove
bits of colored glass, stained glass, into an open hemp hanging. The
transparency and color of the glass continued to intrigue him and
after graduating and going to work for John Graham Architects in
Seattle, he set up his own studio. One evening he melted some glass
in a rudimentary kiln and taking a metal pipe used by plumbers,
gathered up the glass and succeeded in blowing a bubble. "You know,
it shouldn't have worked," recalls Chihuly. "But it did. From that
point on, I was obsessed with becoming a glass blower."
In 1966, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass blowing program begun
in the United States, studying under Harvey Littleton at the
University of Wisconsin. After taking his Master of Science degree
in 1967, he went on to the Rhode Island School of Design for his
Master of Fine Arts. The following year a Fulbright Fellowship
allowed him to go to Venice, to the island of Murano, which
epitomized the highest in glass making technique. He became the
first American glass blower to have a long-term opportunity to study
there, at the celebrated Venini factory. The most important thing
Chihuly learned on Murano was the Italian method of working glass in
a team. At this time in the U.S., the emphasis was on working alone.
Chihuly's adoption of the teamwork approach has made his work
possible, meeting the challenge of the medium with his own aesthetic
challenges. He has made glass works that are technical tours de
force as well as artistic triumphs.
Chihuly returned to the Rhode Island School of Design to head the
glass department and eventually the sculpture department. In 1971,
he co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School on land forty-five minutes
north of Seattle, teaching there during the summer. In the early
1980s, when the income from sales of his pieces matched that of his
teaching salary - $18,000 - he gave up his position at RISD, moved
backed to the Northwest, and devoted himself to producing work.
Series represented in the Norton Museum exhibition include the Macchia
brilliantly multi-colored forms placed by Chihuly on pedestals
ranging from 4' to 8' (based on your institutions ceiling height up
to 12 feet) in height to create a forest. The visitor experiences
the undulating vessels from various viewpoints, sometimes seeing
into them and becoming aware of the Contrasting colors of interior
and exterior and sometimes gazing up through the translucent layers
of color. Also for the Norton Museum, Chihuly has created the 30'
long Persian Pergola, an arbor with over four hundred fanciful
Persian forms.
Spanish Red Sea Form Set with Black Lip Wraps is an extravaganza
of fanciful forms that while not directly inspired by the sea
creatures, recall the denizens of the ocean and the way light
shimmers on and in water. Glass's malleability, translucency, and
reflective quality make it the perfect medium for evoking an aquatic
experience.
The Venetians are vessels that when grouped together command and
shape their space. These works began in 1988 when Chihuly worked
with Venetian master Lino Tagliapietra, considered the best glass
blower in the world. Chihuly had never used a European to head his
team because he felt that they lacked the spontaneity necessary for
his work. In the factory, the gaffer must reproduce exactly and
repeatedly the drawing of the designer. Chihuly's work depends more
on the moment, glass responding to heat, gravity, and centrifugal
force. However, Chihuly admired Tagliapietra's skills and conceived
of a project where he would "pretend to be a Venetian designer in
the 1920s and see what I might come up with.
Starting with watercolor and graphite sketches to communicate his
ideas, Chihuly soon switched to charcoal and the drawings became
bolder and the pieces more extreme. "Handles changed to knots,
prunts became claws, colors went from subtle to bright, and forms
from symmetrical to asymmetrical," according to Chihuly. The
Venetians, although originally inspired by Italian Art Deco glass
soon became completely Chihuly. This series has spawned the
Ikebana with glass flowers and the Putti where solid glass
cherubs cavort on the vase forms.
Also included in the exhibition is a Drawing Wall. Although
traditionally glass work has been conceived by a designer and then
fabricated by a master craftsman, the studio glass movement changed
that by allowing the artist to work directly with the material.
Chihuly works with a team of highly skilled glass blowers, but no
longer blows glass himself. When Chihuly begins a new series, he
prepares drawings to help communicate his ideas to his team. He has
found that he actually has more control of the result when he is not
involved as the gaffer or master of the team. "When I was the
gaffer, I had much less control than I do now. Sometimes I compare
it to film making. If I were the director, I wouldn't need to be
looking into the lens of the camera all the time. I would have the
best cameraman and that would allow me to move in and around the
set," explains Chihuly.
Chihuly drawings are not technical renderings but are more evocative
of the spirit that he is trying to capture in a material that has
been called magical. The drawings in this exhibition frequently
include instructions to his team about color, but there are also
drawings that exist autonomously, Chihuly now draws with the same
exuberance and energy that is materialized in his glass.
While in his series his artistic concerns seems to shift from light
in the Sea Forms, to patterning in the Persians to
color in the Macchia Chihuly has always maintained that it is the process of
glass blowing that fascinates him. "I used to think that it was the
glass that was so mysterious, and then I discovered that it was the
air that went into it that was so miraculous. I often wonder how
anyone ever thought of the idea of blowing air into molten gIass, It
doesn't work with any other material. The Nijima Floats perhaps
best exemplify this attitude. The shape is basic and certainly has
been used by many artists throughout time although these may be the
largest ever blown. In glass the form is one created naturally on
the blowpipe, the one that requires the least manipulation. "I
always like the glass the best when we've touched it the least,"
explains Chihuly.
In 1992 Chihuly was asked by Speight Jenkins, director of the
Seattle Opera, to design the sets for Debussy's "Peéas et
Mélisande." Although Chihuly confesses that he is not an opera buff,
the challenge of working on this scale and creating 15 separate sets
intrigued him. Realizing immediately that glass would not be a
practical material to work with, he has turned to theatrical
textiles and synthetics to approximate the surfaces he achieves with
his glass. Trees of iridescent material rise from the floor of a
black plexiglass stage in the exhibition, reflected on all sides, to
recreate the operas open forest scene.
Dale Chihuly: Installations was the starting point for Chihuly's
most heralded series, the chandeliers. The very first of the series
was created for the exhibitions opening venue, although it has been
superseded by works more indicative of his present direction.
Nuutajarvi Blue Chandelier is built from parts blown in Finland, the
first country that Chihuly collaborated in as part of his ambitious
Chihuly Over Venice, an eighteen-month project involving glass
blowing sessions in five countries, with the resulting sculptures
being suspended above the canals of Venice in 1996. Orange
Chandelier with Horns and Bulbs was first seen as part of the
Academy Awards celebration in 1996.
Accompanying the exhibition is a 72-page, full color catalog,
published by the Seattle Art Museum, with an essay written by
Patterson Sims.
See Dale Chihuly's website at www.chihuly.com.
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