Exhibition dates: 10th April – 7th August, 2011
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Neodymium Reeds on Logs
2008
de Young Museum, San Francisco, California
Photo by Teresa Nouri Rishel
© 2008 Chihuly Studio
“The way I paint or draw, I don’t think about it very much. If I’m thinking about it, that kind of means that I don’t know what to do. If I start thinking, ‘I want to draw, now what can I draw?’ and I’m not inspired – because that can happen very easily – then they start to get mundane. On the other hand, if I start making drawings that I know how to do already, and if I can go fast enough, they start to get really good.”
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Dale Chihuly
I love contemporary glass and Dale Chihuly is one of my favourite artists in the world. The Persian ceiling is breathtaking – organic and pulsating like the most outrageously coloured jellyfish floating over your head; the Ikebana boat, the Mille Fiori pitch perfect – a riot of colour and form, playing with ideas and the chandeliers, the chandeliers – wow! Then to do something as sensitive and restrained as the Tabac basket or the beautiful Neodymium Reeds on Logs. This is the full package, bravo.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
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Many thankx to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Ikebana Boat
2011
Blown glass, boat hull
5 X 17 X 7′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Mille Fiori
2011
Blown glass
9½ X 56 X 12′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Persian Ceiling
2011
Blown glass
15 X 28′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A magical wonderland to delight Alice herself unfolds in Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), from April 10 through August 7, 2011. This exhibition presents new and early works created over the last four decades by Dale Chihuly, one of the world’s foremost artists working in glass. Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass features 12 boldly hued installations. Nine of these glass artworks are on view in the MFA’s Ann and Graham Gund Gallery, which serves as the main stage for the exhibition. Three additional installations are displayed within and outside of the Museum’s soaring, glass-enclosed Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, including the 42-foot-tall Lime Green Icicle Tower. The exhibition is organised by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in cooperation with Dale Chihuly. It is supported by Highland Street Foundation. The media sponsors are The Boston Phoenix and WFNX Radio Network.
“Dale Chihuly is an American original, a master artist and craftsman who brings a truly magical touch to the fragile, yet malleable medium of glass, and who embodies the message: art is for everyone,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “Visitors to the exhibition will be surprised and delighted by his dazzling installations, which create a kaleidoscopic world full of colour and light. This exhibition gives us the wonderful opportunity to showcase the full range and grand scale of his art.”
First Installation in the New Shapiro Family Courtyard
The MFA continues the celebration of the recently opened Art of the Americas Wing and Shapiro Family Courtyard with Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass, showcasing the artwork of one of the most innovative and beloved American artists of our time. The show was conceived two years ago when Chihuly visited the Museum while the courtyard was still under construction, and marks the first time that exhibition-related works are on view in the courtyard. Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass was designed by Chihuly specifically for the Museum site. Works created in the Chihuly Studio hot shop in Seattle, Washington, incorporating thousands of individual pieces of hand-blown glass, were sent to Boston in six 53-foot containers. The 12 installations were assembled on site at the MFA during a three-week period in March. During this time, visitors to the MFA were able to watch a team from Chihuly Studio install the monumental glass artworks in the courtyard and surrounding gardens…
Works created specifically for Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass, such as the dramatic Lime Green Icicle Tower, have transformed the Shapiro Family Courtyard. Measuring 42-feet high and weighing approximately 10,000 pounds, the sculpture’s 2,342 glass elements catch the light flooding into the glass-enclosed space. Also in the courtyard, along the colonnade of the Museum’s historic interior façade, is the newly created Boathouse Neon II – an expansive profusion of red, yellow, and orange – spanning 98 feet. Outside, along the courtyard’s glass walls, Amber Cattails extend the length of the northern-landscaped area as though planted in their natural environment.
“Perhaps the greatest artist in American glass since Louis Comfort Tiffany, Dale Chihuly is one of the central figures in the contemporary studio glass movement. This exhibition will give our visitors a look at his extraordinary career – the creation of enchanting environments that, through the manipulation of light and colour, both delight the eye and challenge our perception of space,” said Gerald W.R. Ward, the Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, who organised the exhibition.
Nine Unique Installations in the New Gund Gallery
The exhibition continues below the courtyard, where nine unique Chihuly installations (including both newly made and early works) are on view in the Gund Gallery for special exhibitions. Outside of the gallery, a glistening, 30′ long and 15′ tall Persian Wall composed of intricately detailed rondels – flower-like shapes in yellows, reds, and oranges – offer an enchanting welcome to visitors. Inside the gallery, Scarlet Icicle Chandelier, measuring 6’ high, sets the stage for the bold creations that lie beyond, such as Ikebana Boat, a 17′-long, newly made composition featuring a weathered wooden rowboat filled with brightly colored, seemingly alien glass forms. Chihuly’s Ikebana series, which alludes to Japanese flower arrangements, is featured in a nearby room, where 5′-to-6′-tall silvered vessels hold inventive floral “stems”. Also on view in the room is an assortment of Venetians – silvered blown glass sculptures originally conceived by Chihuly after seeing Venetian Art Deco glass. Chihuly Drawings seen in this space serve as complement and inspiration for the glass Venetian works. The nearby Northwest Room evokes the artist’s native Pacific Northwest environment and the Native American influence on his work. It features an assemblage of ethereal Baskets inspired by Native American baskets, as well as displays of 75 colourful trade blankets and a variety of woven baskets from the artist’s own extensive collection.
Adjacent to this installation is a darkened space showcasing Mille Fiori (Italian for “a thousand flowers”), measuring 58′ long and 11′ tall and presented on a 12′-wide raised platform. This breathtaking work of art is one of the artist’s largest installations, a combination of many of the colourful, inventive shapes found in Chihuly’s other creations – from exotic Cattails and tall Reeds, to giant glass Niijima Floats and ribbon-like Herons – brilliantly coloured in shades of yellow, red, lavender, green, orange, and blue. Persian Ceiling, a dazzling 15′ by 25′ array of vibrant and beautifully articulated shapes encased and suspended from the ceiling, is featured in the adjacent gallery. This eruption of colour continues in the Chandelier Room, featuring six dramatic Chandeliers hanging at different heights from the 16′-high Gund Gallery ceiling. Included are newly created works, the 12′-tall Silvered Chrysalis Tiered Chandelier and Iris Yellow Frog Foot Chandelier, as well as the spectacular Chiostro di Sant’Apollonia Chandelier and three other works: Palazzo di Loredana Balboni Chandelier, Orange Hornet and Eelgrass Chandelier, and Onyx and Caramel Chandelier. The final exhibition space showcases luminescent Neodymium Reeds, a large-scale installation composed of birch logs and elegant glass Reeds in shades of lavender.
Press release from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Persian Ceiling
2011
Blown glass
15 X 28′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved.
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Persian Wall
2011
Blown glass
15 X 30′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Palazzo di Loredana Balboni Chandelier
2011
Blown glass, steel
9 X 7 X 7′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Chiostro di Sant’Apollonia Chandelier
2011
Blown glass, steel
10 X 7 X 9′
Artwork © 2011 by Chihuly Studio, All rights reserved
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Tabac Basket
Photo by Teresa Nouri Rishel
© 2008 Chihuly Studio
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