After an international search, the Cleveland Institute of Art has hired Marc Petrovic to chair its glass program, selecting him from the 35 qualified applicants for the position. The artist, a Cleveland native and alumnus of CIA, will join its faculty as an assistant professor for the upcoming Fall semester, taking over for his former professor and the longtime glass department chair Brent-Kee Young, who is retiring after 41 years. Petrovic will be relocating from Connecticut, where he has lived and worked for the past 20 years, and returning to the city where he was born, and where he earned his B.F.A. from CIA in 1991.
Finalists for the position visited campus earlier this year, where they were asked to give a lecture, provide demos, and do student critiques, in a sort of audition for the position. It seems Petrovic impressed the search committee.
“The process allowed the committee, the faculty, staff, and students to evaluate the candidates by having them perform and speak to the central activities of education: critique, instruction, and presentation,” says the chair of the search committee Matthew Hollern, a professor.
"We are delighted to welcome Marc Petrovic back to CIA and Cleveland,” says CIA president Grafton Nunes in a prepared statement. “His exquisite work and impressive work ethic will be tremendous examples for our students. Marc has not only thrived as a working studio artist since graduation, but his professional practice has included lecturing and giving demonstrations around the world."
Petrovic's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York City; The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; the Niijima Museum of Glass, Tokyo; The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; the Racine Art Museum, Racine, Washington; among others. A well-travelled visiting artist, Petrovic is a well-known educator, a frequent instructor at workshops known for freely sharing the rigorous techniques he has developed in service of his wide-ranging body of work that seeks to encode objects with layers of meaning and history. His career was the subject of a 2012 feature article in GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (Issue #128).
He is represented by Heller Gallery in New York City and Thomas R. Riley Galleries in Cleveland, as well as others around the U.S.
“Brent Kee Young leaves enormous shoes to fill, after dedicating his career to teaching generations of CIA students,” CIA president Nunes continues. “But Marc, who himself benefitted from Brent’s instruction and mentorship, brings exceptional promise to the position as a teacher, artist, and faculty member. He will continue the tradition of excellence Brent has established.”