Contemporary Glass at The Corning Museum

The Corning Museum of Glass is not just the testament to glass history and technology and ancient art that can be seen in my two previous blogs about the museum: It’s also an important showcase and source of commissions for contemporary artists working in glass.

And not just the big names that every one knows, like Dale Chihuly, although he’s represented right up front, just off the admission desk, with the lovely piece above.

Our visit was during Covid time, and the museum is controlling admissions, but the galleries are spacious enough that crowding is probably not an issue—and that’s important not only because it allows families to stop, view and discuss, but also because of glass itself.

In all its forms, glass is affected by light; seen from one side it may appear different than from another. The opportunity to walk around and view and re-view and change perspective is important. Sometimes, in fact, distance is the critical factor. Note these two views of Forest Glass by Canadian artist Katherine Gray, who used hundreds of reclaimed drinking glasses stacked on shelves to create a work that proves that, up close, you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Copper Pour, Molten Drawing #1 by Christine Tarkowski creates a different kind of illusion, draping molten glass over an armature to create a figure whose outlines and even coloring change as you walk around it.

Still Life with Two Plums by Flora C. Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick is a ‘bigger is better’ story. These blown-glass fruits are colored with hot-applied glass powders to create the blush effects. Originally made life-size, the pieces got no attention in the market; the plums in this set are about 12″ in diameter.

A nod to the Old Masters: Marta Klonowski modeled this spiky lynx on a drawing by Albrecht Dürer, although in her version, Dürer’s pen strokes become more like bristles.

Here and there in these images, you’ll see some extra reflections; that’s because, not surprisingly, many of the pieces are…behind glass. Oh, well.

This complex piece by Debora Moore, is called Epidendrum. It combines a number of important glassworking techniques: blown, fire-worked and then colored with hot-fused powders and finally altered by acid etching.

On Extreme Fragility by Anne and Patrick Poirier uses fallen flower parts as a metaphor for the transitory nature of life. One of the leaves is inscribed “heartbeat” and another “fragility.” The two French artists completed the work in Venice’s famous glass-blowing area of Murano.

Double Face, a double portrait by Ann Wolff, creates a depth beyond what paint could do by layering multiple fragments of glass, some of them pieces of antique sheet glass. It is intended as an exploration of the multiple issues of self and female identity.

Another piece with roots in Murano, and also worked on in Seattle: this work by Lino Tagliapietra, called Endeavor, consists of an array of nearly-abstract shapes which could be a flock of birds or a school of fish but are actually meant to represent Venetian gondolas.

Two studies in black, quite different but both with classical connections. At left is Nocturne 5 by Karen LaMonte inspired by 19th century piano nocturnes and nocturne paintings by Whistler. Fred Wilson’s I Saw Othello’s Visage in His Mind is actually made of clear glass, which is layered on painted wood. It’s a mirror that darkens all reflections. It’s meant to examine race and beauty.

These cute little glass houses (people who live in them shouldn’t throw stones?) sit peacefully on a stretch of Astroturf. Oh, peacefully? Step back and notice the scene above them, where we see that the peace is threatened by a galaxy of glass blades hanging above them. Argentinean Silvia Levenson called the work It’s Raining Knives.

One of the most unusual pieces on display was this Continuous Mile by Liza Lou and a large group of Zulu women in South Africa. It is a carefully-stacked one-mile long, threaded by the women using 4.5 million glossy black glass beads. It took more than a year to make.

Humberto and Fernando Campana, Brazilian brothers, made this Sphere Chandelier from the Candy Collection. It’s a whimsical piece that would look great in a kid’s room, if the museum ever decides to let it go…

This sinister-looking piece by Laura Donefer is Witch Pot, and is actually a blown glass vessel decorated with found objects and handmade beads. Below it, a lighter moment: Shirts, Cherries and Snowflakes, Of Course by Ginny Ruffner.