Spring 2013 / Issue 130
For a medium fueled by a narrative of the new—the ongoing liberation of glass as an expressive material from the limitations of factory production—all the focus on reaching this milestone has made the maturity of the field undeniable, turning this event into an occasion for reflection and consideration. While there's much to celebrate, a question hangs above it all. For the artists who have enjoyed the enthusiastic support of a vital and dedicated collector base, and for the collectors who are turning from collecting to selling or gifting their work to museums for posterity, there is a collective and urgent query: What about the next 50 years?
As the magazine of record for the field of art from glass ,we saw this golden anniversary as a golden opportunity to apply our unique resource—a highly informed, highly opinionated roster of experts—to attempt to answer to this question. We asked our own contributing editors, as well as top curators and critics, to think back not only across five decades of remarkable development, but also ahead to whose work will remain relevant for the next half-century.
We pushed each of our nine judges to be highly selective, limiting them to a short list of 20 artists to avoid the all-inclusive tendency, which can be such a positive aspect of the world of glass. But in this case, we were seeking to be brutally critical. Once their lists were in, we weighted them—the first artists on the list would get a higher numerical score than the second or the third. After totaling up the scores, it was simple math problem to arrive at the list of 50 and to present them in order.
Dale Chihuly taking the top spot on the list will come as no surprise. No one else has reached more people using the material for sculpture, and he deserves his wide representation in museums around the world, which is his assurance that we will remain the ambassador for glass as a medium of art well into the next half-century. What was unexpected on the list was the combination of artists dedicated to the material with artists whose work is fabricated by others, clear evidence that liberation from the factory model has become more nuanced, and that expression in glass can be achieved in a variety of ways.
Not everyone will be happy with this list; there will no doubt be challenge to names that are and are not listed. But there can be no discussion without a starting point, and this is our best effort to embark on the conversation of where we've been ,where we are, and where we are going. These are vital areas of contemplation as we look forward as well as backward for this momentous occasion.
Editor's Letter
Fifty years is a big deal. Married couples call it their golden anniversary. It has been a custom to reward employees serving for five decades with a gift of a gold watch. Collectors, artists, and curators of glass aren't pulling any punches to mark the half-century since the 1962 Toledo Museum of Art workshops; this year is packed with museum shows, art events, and conferences. The collectors' association known as the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass has pooled multiple years' budget to help promote this milestone by funding museum exhibitions and offering grants (including a donation to support this issue of GLASS.)
For a medium fueled by a narrative of the new—the ongoing liberation of glass as an expressive material from the limitations of factory production—all the focus on reaching this milestone has made the maturity of the field undeniable, turning this event into an occasion for reflection and consideration. While there's much to celebrate, a question hangs above it all. For the artists who have enjoyed the enthusiastic support of a vital and dedicated collector base, and for the collectors who are turning from collecting to selling or gifting their work to museums for posterity, there is a collective and urgent query: What about the next 50 years?
As the magazine of record for the field of art from glass ,we saw this golden anniversary as a golden opportunity to apply our unique resource—a highly informed, highly opinionated roster of experts—to attempt to answer to this question. We asked our own contributing editors, as well as top curators and critics, to think back not only across five decades of remarkable development, but also ahead to whose work will remain relevant for the next half-century.
We pushed each of our nine judges to be highly selective, limiting them to a short list of 20 artists to avoid the all-inclusive tendency, which can be such a positive aspect of the world of glass. But in this case, we were seeking to be brutally critical. Once their lists were in, we weighted them—the first artists on the list would get a higher numerical score than the second or the third. After totaling up the scores, it was simple math problem to arrive at the list of 50 and to present them in order.
Dale Chihuly taking the top spot on the list will come as no surprise. No one else has reached more people using the material for sculpture, and he deserves his wide representation in museums around the world, which is his assurance that we will remain the ambassador for glass as a medium of art well into the next half-century. What was unexpected on the list was the combination of artists dedicated to the material with artists whose work is fabricated by others, clear evidence that liberation from the factory model has become more nuanced, and that expression in glass can be achieved in a variety of ways.
Not everyone will be happy with this list; there will no doubt be challenge to names that are and are not listed. But there can be no discussion without a starting point, and this is our best effort to embark on the conversation of where we've been ,where we are, and where we are going. These are vital areas of contemplation as we look forward as well as backward for this momentous occasion.