Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass
admin-g4a on March 22, 2011 with 0 CommentsExhibition Features Vibrant Installations by Internationally Acclaimed Artist Dale Chihuly
A magical wonderland to delight Alice herself will unfold in Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), from April 10 through August 7, 2011. This exhibition presents new and early works created over the last four decades by Dale Chihuly, one of the world’s foremost artists working in glass. Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass will feature 12 boldly hued installations. Nine of these glass installations will be on view in the MFA’s Ann and Graham Gund Gallery, which serves as the main stage for the exhibition. Three additional artworks will be displayed within and outside of the Museum’s soaring, glass-enclosed Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, including the 42-foot-tall Lime Green Icicle Tower. The exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in cooperation with Dale Chihuly. It is supported by Highland Street Foundation. The media sponsors are The Boston Phoenix and WFNX Radio Network.
―Dale Chihuly is an American original, a master artist and craftsman who brings a truly magical touch to the fragile, yet malleable medium of glass, and who embodies the message: art is for everyone, said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “Visitors to the exhibition will be surprised and delighted by his dazzling installations, which create a kaleidoscopic world full of color and light. This exhibition gives us the wonderful opportunity to showcase the full range and grand scale of his art.”
First Installation in the New Shapiro Family Courtyard
The MFA continues the celebration of the recently opened Art of the Americas Wing and Shapiro Family Courtyard with Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass, showcasing the artwork of one of the most innovative and beloved American artists of our time. The show was conceived two years ago when the artist visited the Museum while the courtyard was still under construction, and marks the first time that exhibition-related works will be on view in the courtyard. Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass was designed by Chihuly specifically for the Museum site. Works created in the Chihuly Studio hot shop in Seattle, incorporating thousands of individual pieces of hand-blown glass, have been sent to Boston in six 53-foot containers. The complex installation, which began March 14, will continue for nearly three weeks. During this period, visitors to the MFA’s courtyard can enjoy watching the process of assembling two monumental glass artworks, as well as one large-scale installation in the adjacent landscaped area.
―I’m very excited about my upcoming show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, said Chihuly, who further commented that he is ―delighted to be working in the magnificent Norman Foster-designed building and looking forward to the opportunity to present my work in the newly opened Art of the Americas Wing and Shapiro Family Courtyard.
Works created specifically for Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass, such as the dramatic Lime Green Icicle Tower, will transform the Shapiro Family Courtyard. Measuring 42-feet high and weighing approximately 10,000 pounds, the sculpture’s 2,342 glass elements will catch the light flooding into the glass-enclosed space. Also in the courtyard, adjacent to the historic interior Museum façade, will be the newly created Boathouse Neon II—an expansive profusion of red, yellow, and orange, spanning 98 feet. Outside, along the courtyard’s glass walls, Amber Cattails will extend the length of the northern-landscaped area as though planted in their natural environment.
―Perhaps the greatest artist in American glass since Louis Comfort Tiffany, Dale Chihuly is one of the central figures in the contemporary studio glass movement. This exhibition will give our visitors a look at his extraordinary career—the creation of enchanting environments that through the manipulation of light and color both delight the eye and challenge our perception of space, said Gerald W.R. Ward, the Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, who organized the exhibition.
The exhibition will continue below the courtyard, where nine unique Chihuly installations (including both newly made and early works) are on view in the Gund Gallery for special exhibitions. Outside of the gallery, a glistening, 30’ long and 15’ tall Persian Wall composed of intricately detailed rondels—flower-like shapes in yellows, reds, and oranges—will offer an enchanting welcome to visitors. Inside the gallery, Scarlet Icicle Chandelier, measuring 6’ high, will set the stage for the bold creations that lie beyond. Also on view will be Ikebana Boat, a 17’-long, newly made composition featuring a weathered wooden rowboat filled with brightly colored, seemingly alien glass forms. Chihuly’s Ikebana series, which alludes to Japanese flower arrangements, will be featured in a nearby room where colorful vessels hold inventive floral ―stems. Also on view in the Venetian Room is an assortment of Venetians—fanciful blown glass sculptures originally conceived by Chihuly after seeing Venetian Art Deco glass. Chihuly Drawings seen in this space serve as complement and inspiration for the glass Venetian works. The nearby Northwest Room will evoke the artist’s native Pacific Northwest environment and the Native American influence on his work. It will feature an assemblage of ethereal Baskets inspired by Native American baskets, trade blankets, and Tabac Baskets from the artist’s own extensive collection, a selection of which are on view in the exhibition.
Adjacent to this installation is a darkened space showcasing Mille Fiori (Italian for ―a thousand flowers), measuring 56-feet long and 9 ½ feet high and presented on a 12-foot-wide raised platform. This breathtaking work of art is one of the artist’s largest installations, a combination of many of the colorful, inventive shapes found in Chihuly’s other creations—from exotic Cattails and tall Reeds, to giant glass Niijima Floats and ribbon-like Herons—brilliantly colored in shades of yellow, red, lavender, green, orange, and blue. Persian Ceiling, a dazzling 28’ by 15’ array of vibrant and beautifully articulated shapes encased and suspended from the ceiling will be featured in the adjacent gallery. This eruption of color will continue in the Chandelier Room, featuring six dramatic Chandeliers hanging at different heights from the 16’ high Gund Gallery ceiling. Included are newly created works, the 12’-tall Silvered Chrysalis Tiered Chandelier and Iris Yellow Frog Foot Chandelier, as well as the spectacular Chiostro di Sant’Apollonia Chandelier and three other works: Palazzo di Loredana Balboni Chandelier, Orange Hornet and Eelgrass Chandelier, and Onyx and Caramel Chandelier.
The final exhibition space will showcase luminescent Neodymium Reeds, a large-scale installation composed of birch logs and elegant glass Reeds in shades of lavender.
Since 1983, Dale Chihuly and Chihuly Studio have been based in Seattle, Washington. Working with a team at his Boathouse hot shop, Chihuly orchestrates his masterful creations.
Chihuly’s team employs the Venetian glassmaking technique in which molten glass is shaped at the end of a blowpipe using traditional metal and wooden tools. Color is added to the hot glass that is often reheated and reshaped before being broken off the metal rod and cooled slowly in an oven.
Dale Chihuly
Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Chihuly enrolled in college but left to study art in Florence and to travel to the Middle East. He received his BA in Interior Design from the University of Washington in 1965, when he became captivated by the process of glassblowing. Chihuly enrolled in the University of Wisconsin’s hot glass program, the first of its kind in the United States, and established by Harvey K. Littleton, one of the founders of the studio glass movement. After receiving a degree there in sculpture, Chihuly entered the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, where he forged strong ties to New England. Influenced by an environment that fostered the blurring of boundaries separating the various arts, as early as 1967 Chihuly was using neon, argon, and blown glass forms to create room-sized installations. He received his M.F.A in 1968 (the artist established the glass program and taught for 11 years at RISD as well). Chihuly, teaching on both coasts, co-founded the legendary Pilchuck School in Stanwood, Washington, in 1971. By the mid-1970s, Chihuly was incorporating Native American imagery in his work, inspired by Navajo blankets such as those he viewed in the 1975 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition, Navajo Blankets, 1850–1900.
Chihuly is best known for his multi-part blown compositions, which for years has involved a team of glassblowers, enabling him to work on a grand scale and to explore and experiment with color, design, and composition. Chihuly has created a number of extraordinary site-specific installations in various venues across the world, including installations above the canals of Venice. His lifelong affinity for glasshouses has grown into a series of exhibitions within botanical settings. His garden exhibitions began in 2001 at Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. Chihuly also exhibited at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, near London, in 2005.
Nine Unique Installations in the New Gund Gallery
The exhibition will continue below the courtyard, where nine unique Chihuly installations (including both newly made and early works) are on view in the Gund Gallery for special exhibitions. Outside of the gallery, a glistening, 30’ long and 15’ tall Persian Wall composed of intricately detailed rondels—flower-like shapes in yellows, reds, and oranges—will offer an enchanting welcome to visitors. Inside the gallery, Scarlet Icicle Chandelier, measuring 6’ high, will set the stage for the bold creations that lie beyond. Also on view will be Ikebana Boat, a 17’-long, newly made composition featuring a weathered wooden rowboat filled with brightly colored, seemingly alien glass forms. Chihuly’s Ikebana series, which alludes to Japanese flower arrangements, will be featured in a nearby room where colorful vessels hold inventive floral ―stems.‖ Also on view in the Venetian Room is an assortment of Venetians—fanciful blown glass sculptures originally conceived by Chihuly after seeing Venetian Art Deco glass. Chihuly Drawings seen in this space serve as complement and inspiration for the glass Venetian works. The nearby Northwest Room will evoke the artist’s native Pacific Northwest environment and the Native American influence on his work. It will feature an assemblage of ethereal Baskets inspired by Native American baskets, trade blankets, and Tabac Baskets from the artist’s own extensive collection, a selection of which are on view in the exhibition.
Adjacent to this installation is a darkened space showcasing Mille Fiori (Italian for ―a thousand flowers‖), measuring 56-feet long and 9 ½ feet high and presented on a 12-foot-wide raised platform. This breathtaking work of art is one of the artist’s largest installations, a combination of many of the colorful, inventive shapes found in Chihuly’s other creations—from exotic Cattails and tall Reeds, to giant glass Niijima Floats and ribbon-like Herons—brilliantly colored in shades of yellow, red, lavender, green, orange, and blue. Persian Ceiling, a dazzling 28’ by 15’ array of vibrant and beautifully articulated shapes encased and suspended from the ceiling will be featured in the adjacent gallery. This eruption of color will continue in the Chandelier Room, featuring six dramatic Chandeliers hanging at different heights from the 16’ high Gund Gallery ceiling. Included are newly created works, the 12’-tall Silvered Chrysalis Tiered Chandelier and Iris Yellow Frog Foot Chandelier, as well as the spectacular Chiostro di Sant’Apollonia Chandelier and three other works: Palazzo di Loredana Balboni Chandelier, Orange Hornet and Eelgrass Chandelier, and Onyx and Caramel Chandelier.
