Page 6 - Boca Exposure - February '21

Page 6, Boca Exposure
Boca Raton Museum Of Art’s Glasstress 2021

International Exhibition Features 34 Artists,

Centuries-Old Venice Tradition Of Murano Glassmaking

“There is every reason this year to have a world view,” says Museum of Art has dedicated more than 6,500
Irvin Lippman, the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s executive square feet of exhibition space to this collection.
director, as South Florida ushers in the new year with the A fully illustrated catalogue is also available.
national premiere of Glasstress 2021 Boca Raton. “Three The mission of Glasstress is to restore the
years in the making, with 2020 being such a challenging visibility and reputation of Murano glass after
year to coordinate an international exhibition of this size and decades of closures of ancient, centuries-old
scope, the effort serves as an important reassurance that art glass furnaces. Instead of creating decorative
is an essential and enduring part of humanity. This is also a objects with glass, these artists are invited
tribute to the resilience of Venice’s surviving the floods and to create original works, often on a massive
continuing to make art through the pandemic.” scale. They collaborate with glass masters
Most of these works in glass have never been seen elsewhere, whose expertise has been developed over
and were handpicked by Kathleen Goncharov, the museum’s generations in Venice. Most of these artists
senior curator who traveled to Italy in 2019. The new exhibition have never worked with glass, so they unite
runs through Sept. 5 and the museum will feature online their artistic ideas with the technical expertise
initiatives for virtual viewing. of their skilled collaborators.
The 34 artists in this new edition of Glasstress were all The results are breathtaking. The first Song Dong and his Chandelier sculpture River Woman, by Kathleen Goncharov
invited by Adriano Berengo to work alongside his master glass installation visitors to the museum will
artisans at the Berengo Studio on the island of Murano in the encounter is Sala Longhi by Fred Wilson. He created this series Tate is the co-founder of the Washington Glass Studio in
Venetian lagoon. With incredible energy, the studio has brought at Berengo Studio after the Biennale exhibited his work about Washington, D.C. He is also the co-moderator, along with
a new vision on how to stimulate today’s leading artists into black residents of Venice from the Renaissance to the present. William Warmus, of the 21st Century Glass group on Facebook,
thinking how the medium of glass can be made into dramatic This installation features an ornate white chandelier with 29 glass which has shared and discussed over 10,000 images of sculptural
and provocative works of contemporary art. Most of these panels that mirror 18th-century Venetian artist Pietro Longhi’s glass from around the world.
artists have, during their careers, been invited to participate in paintings. Instead of canvases, Wilson shows the viewer only Erwin Wurm’s wry sense of humor permeates his most
the Venice Biennale. Some of the works were completed during the whites of the eyes of his black subjects through cutouts in famous works and has served him well in creating a poignant
the pandemic lockdowns, with artists collaborating remotely via black reflective glass. cultural commentary throughout his career. Wurm produced a
Zoom with their glass artisan partners after initial on-site work “We have brought Glasstress to countries around the world triad in cold hard glass at the Berengo Studio. They are smaller
at the studio in Venice. for 10 years, seeking to expand and enliven international versions of the massive bronze sculpture of a hot water bottle
“Unlike the past and the present, what comes next for our awareness of the variety and richness of contemporary artists with legs, Big Mutter, that he created for the Venice Biennale
world presents itself as constant possibility, always transforming using glass in their creative practices,” adds Berengo. “In the in 2020. In the exhibition catalog, the show’s curator, Kathleen
as we move forward in time,” says Adriano Berengo. “This past, its place in the art world might have seemed uncertain. Goncharov, describes these “mothers” as neither warm nor
concept of transformation has always held an affinity with glass, But now, in this latest edition of Glasstress, the first after a comforting ... their stubby little legs imply flight when called
a medium which – as the name Glasstress suggests – exists in global pandemic, one thing we know for certain: glass endures. upon to be caregivers.
a state of constant tension. Life needs tension, it needs energy, Life is fragile, just as glass is fragile, yet in this fragility there At the Berengo Studio, Jimmie Durham created a series of
and a vibrant exchange of ideas.” is also strength.” It is in this spirit of experimentation that eight giant cougar heads suspended on metal armatures. Caught
The exhibition presents 34 new works that explore some Glasstress Boca Raton 2021 explores the limitless potential in suspension as they gaze at one another, their collective roar
of today’s pressing subjects, including human rights, climate of glassblowing. “We realize how far we have come as we remains frozen between them. The cougar is one of the most
change, racial justice, gender issues and politics. The Boca Raton approach the 60th anniversary of the American studio glass sacred animals in Cherokee mythology, and the influence of
movement that launched in 1962 through the efforts of Harvey Native-American culture vs. Western rationalism is evident in
Littleton and Dominick Labino,” adds Irvin Lippman. “This his work. The artist’s long trajectory includes his work during
presentation of Glasstress is also a tribute to them.” the civil rights movement and as a political organizer for the
This show also unveils the museum’s new acquisition American Indian Movement. In 2019, Durham was the recipient
for its collection, created in the Berengo Studio: Glass Big of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award at the 58th
Brother, a sculpture by Song Dong, one of contemporary Venice Biennale.
Chinese art’s leading figures.
“Certainly, this chandelier sculpture by Song Dong with its
glass-blown surveillance cameras, is both poetic and poignant,”
says Lippman. “It was commissioned by the museum to hang
in our new Wolgin Education Center front windows that face
pedestrians walking across Mizner Park.” The large-scale ceiling
installation is 11 feet long and reaches all the way to the floor.
Thirty surveillance cameras are ensconced from top to bottom,
looking out at all directions around the chandelier.
The installation Rosemarie’s Divorce, by Renate Bertlmann,
unites aspects from Rosemarie’s Baby (1983), her multi-part Cougar Heads (detail), by Jimmie Durham
installation about the ambivalent relationship between mother
and child, and Discordo Ergo Sum, a field of knife-roses she In the museum’s exhibition catalogue, curator Kathleen
exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2019. The monstrously Goncharov describes Prune Nourry as no stranger to illness
enlarged glass pacifier is an image she has used since the mid- ... her work always dealing with science and bioethics from
1970s referencing sexuality and motherhood. It is flanked by a feminist perspective, a focus that has intensified since her
two knife-roses made of deep black glass. breast cancer diagnosis in 2018. At the Berengo Studio, she
The Italian artist Monica Bonvicini’s deeply psychological created River Woman, a transparent skeletal sculpture based on
work addresses themes of sexuality, power, and relationships in an anatomical drawing of the human vascular system. While its
male-oriented domains. Her visits to sadomasochist nightclubs form may be human, the arteries resemble rivers, streams and
with gay male friends are the inspiration for Bonded. She won trees that suffer in their own way too, from human abuse rather
the prestigious Golden Lion award at the 1999 Venice Biennale. than disease.
DNA Has No Color is a new statement from Nancy Burson Ugo Rondinone represented his home country in the Swiss
that is a powerful work about the illegitimacy of racism. This Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007).
is a continuation of the project that Zaha Hadid commissioned In this work, the 12 glass horses cast in beautiful shades of
Burson to develop for the London Millennium Dome. Burson blue all face different directions, creating delicate light games
is known for biology-related work, including her use of cutting- with their reflections and shadows in continuous motion. In
edge facial morphing technology for art that shows what the context of this installation, the reappearing motif of a horse
individuals would look like as a different race. As an HIV-positive (which has a long tradition in the history of art), evokes alienation
man, he lived through the and a subversive twist emblematic of Rondinone’s works.
worst of the AIDS epidemic About Adriano Berengo
during the 1980s and 1990s, A true Venetian, Adriano Berengo lives and works in
and now through the current Venice. He holds a foreign languages degree from Ca’ Foscari
pandemic. In the museum’s University (Venice) and specialized in comparative literature
exhibition catalogue, the artist in a state university in New York. Berengo is the visionary
states that Pandemic Oculus behind Fondazione Berengo, Glasstress, and the glass
also honors the many unsung factory Berengo Studio 1989, which is celebrating its 30th
heroes around the world: anniversary. Following in the footsteps of Egidio Costantini
nurses, teachers, essential and Peggy Guggenheim, who introduced outstanding artists
employees, grandparents such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall to Murano glass,
caring for children so that Berengo has been championing the innovative use of glass as
parents can work, and so Pandemic Oculus, by Nancy a medium in contemporary art for 30 years by inviting more
many more. Burson than 300 artists to work with the glass masters in Murano.