Karl P. Platt on thu 8 may 97
OK, I'll bite.
The question as to whether glass can be made into art is a grand polemic.
Many glassworkers fancy their work to be ART. If you read any magazine
concerning the matter with the word Glass in its title, it would appear
that there are people who believe it can be ART. They wax on in ponderous
pedantic prose about the this or that aesthetic merit of the work being
shown in what are called ART galleries. However, when one refers to
critical reviews emanating from without the ART GLASS community, another
perspective emerges. There the writers wax on in ponderous pedantic prose
about how the work being shown is most certainly not ART, but something
else.
Reality probably lies somewhere in between. I would say that just where
that point lies is not a simple linear function of whether somethin gis
art or craft, etc. Glass suffers from being technologically intensive --
like it or not. It has rules that are much more severe than those met with
potting -- generally speaking.
As well, if you toss a bottle on the
ground, the shards that remain do _look_ interesting. Don't they? They
glimmer in the light. They have abstract forms. Can be assembled in unique
configurations, etc.
The idea of glass as an expressive medium in the sense of painting or
sculpture in the pure sense, is relatively recent -- certainly within the
20th century. The idea of studio glass is another whole bag. In the US
people fancy the legend that Littleton/Labino "were the first" to "do"
studio glass. This, I'll submit, is certainly not the case, but they did,
indeed,
demonstrate the practicality of the studio context and they took it to the
art school. Remember, Professor Littleton was a pottery professor first.
At the University, in the ART school, people toyed with glass and made
some interesting blobs -- many rich in the effects of smeared-on silver
salts, etc. No-one really knew much about glass or glassmaking
(including the "art" buyers) and since there was no basis for
comparison almost anything made by one-guy/gal-and-a-furnace could be and
was called "art".
Hoje em dia -- today, we find that the point of view has changed a bit. A
vocabulary has been built, Chuhuly's world-wide circus and pR machine have
sensitized many people to the fact that glass can be something other than
bottles, headlights, tchotchkes, etc. Whether any of this is art or not is
well outside my proper realm to judge, however, I will say that I have
seen in the past decade a lot of work that strives to be and now and again
attains great success as sculptural objects. There is also a lot of simply
badly made "bagunca" being passed off as art. Art, I think we'll agree, is
not an excuse for bad technique -- can an illiterate write poetry?
Likewise, glittery technique does not art make -- or can we call fiber
optic cable, which is made by stunningly elegant technique art? Eye candy
don't cut it.
OK, I'll stop here. Someone might see this and reply.
Karl P. Platt -- recovering from being Spammed yesterday (hope this
never happens to you) and listening to Caetano Veloso in his home
country -- delicious
Seja Diferente! Kill your television!
M.-J. Taylor on fri 9 may 97
Karl Platt wrote:
>The idea of glass as an expressive medium in the sense of painting or
>sculpture in the pure sense, is relatively recent -- certainly within the
>20th century.
Gee! What are all those windows I saw in the churches in Europe?
Something tells me ... the echoes of my art history professor in college --
that stained glass was very much considered an artistic medium *sensu
stricto*.
If memory serves, one of the earliest uses of colored glass in windows was
in St. Paul's, built by Constantine around 337AD. And there are examples of
painted glass windows in Abbey St.Denis placed in the church in 1140 AD.
Indeed, it might appear that stained glass was only made available to the
masses as a _craft_ in the 20th Century with Louis Tiffany's development
and the popularization of the copper foil method of construction. Before
that, the skills required for its construction kept stained glass very much
in the purview of artisans.
But that's just how I see it, and I think mosaics are a legitimate form of
art, too.
Cheers,
M.-J. Taylor
M.-J. Taylor on fri 9 may 97
It seems I may have taken Karl Platt's post out of context .. that is, it
seemed he was referring to glass in general in this post, and not to
blowing glass ... so please excuse me while I wipe the egg off my face with
my post in defense of stained glass as an art!
M.-J. Taylor
Fay & Ralph Loewenthal on fri 9 may 97
Karl P. Platt wrote about glass as an art medium (I hope
I understood correctly). IMHO any material can be used
as an art medium. It depends on technique and what the
artist puts into the work for it to be good Art. As Karl
says technique alone cannot make Art. Likewise no
matter how much the artist puts into work, if the
technique is lacking or unsound one gets rotten Art. I
feel that like clay, glass can be a very exciting medium to
work with. Ceramics in most cases is the combination of
the two mediums. What are our glazes if not glass. We
are just going that extra mile to improve our art by means
of both media.
I hope we get some good discusion evoked from Karl's
message. Ralph in PE SA
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