American artist Beth Lipman is known for her complex clear glass assemblages comprising fruits, flowers and topiary forms; Scandinavian artist Ingalena Klenell is recognized for her kiln-formed clear glass often overlaid with lacework patterns. Klenell and Lipman have taught and lectured collaboratively in Italy, Sweden, and the United States, but this exhibition marks their first artistic collaboration.
Elements for the exhibition will be created both individually in their respective studios and together during a visiting artists recidency the Museum’s Hot Shop in January, 2010. From this, a new body of work will emerge, combining kiln-formed, blown and sculpted glass in a sequence of installations, which engage the visitor in most unusual settings.
The exhibition comprises three vignettes, Memento, Landscape, and Artifacts. Memento will feature an assemblage of colorless, cut, polished, and fractured “objects of desire,”—some seemingly familiar, some abstracted, all unattainable in their glass encasement.
In Landscape, a path will meander around sculpted clear glass components that hang from the ceiling and rise up from the floor, creating a curtain of glass. Landscape will reference the pioneering writings of British author Simon Schama and the paintings of Washingtonian Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943). Showcasing cutting edge technology, Landscape will be unique in the world of glass.
In Artifacts, light projections will play over a series of sandblasted fractured glass components, which will be embedded into the walls. In these ways, Glimmering Gone will investigate our connection with nature and collective and personal memory.
A hard-cover catalog, published in association with the University of Washington Press, will accompany the exhibition.
