Sunday, March 28, 2010

Tyler Faculty BOHYUN YOON installation in New York
















Congratulations to Tyler Adjunct Assistant Professor Bohyun Yoon - he has an amazing piece in Smoke+Mirrors/Shadows+Fog” at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery in New York. Here's a brief statement from Bo about his installation:

“Structure of Shadow,” is an installation piece which presents a mix of male and female toy-like rubber figures hung with strings and marching in one direction, one after another. Hanging like puppets, the figures portray the idea of a group as opposed to an individual. A light and shadow trick is a key factor in this work: it is a metaphor of the invisible power of political tricks in our society. Using the media of light and shadow, I create an installation work in the space. A full scene of a crowd is constructed by using the whole surrounding wall as a shadow screen. This piece is an interactive work: when a viewer approaches the structure, a motion sensor will cause the light bulb to shake so that the shadows of the figurine crowd will move around the entire space. The viewer’s engagement plays an important role in completing the piece.

For more about Bo and his work, visit his web site at: www.bohyunyoon.com

Photo:
Installation view of Bohyun Yoon’s Structure of Shadow (2009) from “Smoke+Mirrors/Shadows+Fog” at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery.
Photograph by John Bentham.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

TYLER GLASS GUILD SALE This Friday and Saturday 03/26 and 03/27





















Featuring cast glass jewelry, hand blown vases, tumblers, and candle holders


This coming Friday and Saturday (March 26 + 27), the Tyler Glass Guild will hold its first sale of the spring semester. Proceeds from the sale fund our Visiting Artists Program.


Today’s Featured Production Line: SKOPOS
(see photo)
Handblown vases by Kieran Kuschke, Andrew Shaffer, and John Shoemaker. These tall vases are handblown in clear and color with fine white cane. Prices: $80 - 120.

photo credit: David Fonda
Another beautiful photo by David Fonda. Check out his web site: www.fondaphoto.com

TYLER GLASS GUILD SALE
March 26 and March 27
9am – 6pm
Tyler School of Art Lobby
2001 North 13th Street
Philadelphia 19122

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

CGP [Contemporary Glass Philadelphia] Visits Tyler



















On Sunday, March 21, we were thrilled to host a group from CGP: Contemporary Glass Philadelphia. This wonderful group toured our studios and exhibition, visited with graduate students, and watched a demo by Assistant Professor Dan Cutrone (in photo, assisted by Alli Fonda).

Here's some more information about CGP - a great organization in our opinion! - from their newsletter: CGP serves as a forum for collectors, artists, gallery owners, curators, and educators to share experiences through the contemporary glass movement. CGP is a source of information on local glass related events. Members receive the CGP newsletter and participate in varied events throughout the Delaware Valley. For more information, please contact Penny and Shel Bernick at psbern@ix.netcom.com.

Sincere thanks to our friends at CGP for coming to see us in our new home. We had a great time!

Monday, March 22, 2010

TYLER GLASS GUILD SALE This Friday and Saturday 03/26 and 03/27

Featuring cast glass jewelry, hand blown vases, tumblers, and candle holders

This coming Friday and Saturday (March 26 + 27), the Tyler Glass Guild will hold its first sale of the spring semester. Proceeds from the sale fund our Visiting Artists Program.


This semester, the juniors and seniors were assigned to work in groups of 2 – 3 to design a production item or line of items. Emphasis was placed on developing and refining a concept, quality of design and fabrication, and the economics of producing the item in a large quantity. This project came from our desire to help students begin to prepare for their futures as practicing artists, and how they might support their studio practice.


Today’s Featured Production Line: BUBBLEWEAR
(see photo)
Cast glass jewelry by Victoria Ahmadizadeh, Abby Freeman, and Megan Hughes. This whimsical jewelry is cast from everyday packaging materials including bubble wrap and packing peanuts. Various colors and sizes available; all come with a sterling silver chain. Prices: $30 - $35ea.

photo credit: David Fonda
David Fonda, the father of one of our students, is a professional photographer who kindly donated his time to photograph student work for the sale. He did an amazing job and we are so grateful! Check out his web site: www.fondaphoto.com

TYLER GLASS GUILD SALE
March 26 and March 27
9am – 6pm
Tyler School of Art Lobby
2001 North 13th Street
Philadelphia 19122

Saturday, March 20, 2010

RONI HORN at ICA Boston























From the Glass Quarterly blog: Kim Harty's essay on Roni Horn's exhibition at ICA Boston. For more information: http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2010/02/19/opening-roni-horns-glass-cast-sculptures-at-the-boston-ica/#more-2560

Conceptual artist Roni Horn is known for using sculptural materials to play with the viewer’s perception. Her current show “Roni Horn aka Roni Horn,” opens today at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and includes photography, drawing, and metals such as copper and gold. But the most dramatic pieces are her massive glass castings.

Horn worked with Schott, a German glass company, to fabricate the three castings on display. Two shallow cylindrical castings, Opposite of White v1 (2006), and Opposite of White v2 (2006), are clear and black castings respectively. Measuring 56 inches in diameter and 20 inches high, each casting contains about 4,500 pounds of solid glass.

The surfaces of the pieces are fire-polished and slightly bowed like liquid under tension, while the sides maintain the rough texture of the mold. The black casting is completely impenetrable to light, and its dark glass mass has a dense and heavy quality. Its polished surface is opaque but reflective, keeping any light from entering the volume of the piece.

The clear casting, in contrast, is optically pristine and the viewer can see straight to the bottom of it. Although the immense weight of the glass is obvious, this object confuses the senses because its looks almost immaterial. At first glance the two castings seem to be opposites of one an other, but their identical title, The Opposite of White, challenges the viewer to reconsider this assumption.

Weighing about 10,000 pounds, Pink Tons (2008) is a 4-foot pink cube which the viewer might have to stand on their toes to get a good view of. The pink glass is totally transparent, and the interior of the casting has giant cracks which refract and reflect light. Looking though the surface, into the depths of the casting, you can examine the cracked glass and understand the vulnerability in the otherwise stolid structural mass.

In her New York Times review of the show as it was installed at the Whitney Museum in New York City, Roberta Smith observes, that Pink Tons and Opposite of White “quietly exaggerates the Minimalist taste for unadulterated materials to the point of flamboyance. “ Although Horn uses Minimalist geometric forms, the natural characteristics of the glass, such as the surface tension and the cracks, speak more to the phenomenology of the material.

It’s apparent from the title of the show, “Roni Horn aka Roni Horn,” as well as many interviews with Horn, that her androgynous identity is at the root of her work. The Opposite of White v1 and v2, exposes a false polarity (just as male and female are false polarities), while Pink Tons uses subtle gender signifier (such as “feminine” pink color, and “masculine” cube shape) to create an androgynous object. If Horn is attempting to expose the nature of androgyny, glass may be the perfect vehicle. Appearing as a liquid but existing as a solid, it’s atomic structure is an anomaly in the basic laws of states of matter. Horn uses the fundamental characteristics of glass to make sculpture which is visually and technically magnificent. Seen in the wider context of her work, it has an even richer meaning.

“Roni Horn aka Roni Horn,” has gained critical acclaim exhibited at both the Tate Modern in London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Whether you are a fan of her work or not, these castings are not to be missed.

—Kim Harty



Be sure the check out the Schott link - amazing.

for more information, go to the Glass Quarterly blog http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2010/02/19/opening-roni-horns-glass-cast-sculptures-at-the-boston-ica/#more-2560

or ICA Boston
http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/horn/

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

MELISSA MILGROM author of STILL LIFE: Adventures in Taxidermy

On March 24, Tyler Glass is very excited to host Melissa Milgrom, author of the just-released book Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy. We're always interested to hear artists speak about where their ideas come from, and creative process - how to start, how to keep going, and sometimes hardest of all - how to finish. We're excited to hear her talk about her experience researching and writing Still Life.

"WHY TAXIDERMY?" (from www.melissamilgrom.com)
It's easy to dismiss taxidermy as a kitschy or morbid sideline, the realm of trophy fish and jackalopes or a throwback to the dusty diorama. Yet it is a world full of intrepid hunter-explorers, eccentric naturalists, and gifted museum artisans, all devoted to the paradoxical pursuit of creating the illusion of life.

Into this subculture of insanely passionate animal lovers ventures journalist Melissa Milgrom, whose journey stretches from the anachronistic family workshop of the last chief taxidermist for the American Museum of Natural History to the studio where an English sculptor preserves the animals for Damien Hirst's most disturbing artworks. She wanders through Mr. Potter's Museum of Curiosities to watch dealers vie for preserved Victorian oddities, and visits the Smithsonian's offsite lab, where taxidermists transform zoo skins into vivacious beasts. She tags along with a Canadian bear hunter—the three-time World Taxidermy Champion—as he recreates an extinct Irish Elk using DNA studies and Paleolithic cave art for reference; she even ultimately picks up a scalpel herself. Transformed from a curious onlooker to an empathetic participant, Milgrom comes to understand not only what drives the very best taxidermists in their desire for perfection, but why people in our era of ecological awareness and high technology still find taxidermy so alluring. Straddling science and art, high culture and kitsch—like taxidermy itself—STILL LIFE celebrates the beauty in the uncanny.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Melissa Milgrom has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure, and Metropolis, among other publications. She has also produced radio segments for Public Radio International's Studio 360. She holds a master's degree in American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and lives in New York City.

ABOUT THE LECTURE
open to the public
1pm Wednesday March 24
Tyler School of Art Rm B089

funded by the Temple University Student Activities Fee

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tyler Glass Facilities


Tyler Glass is a close-knit community of artists working in an intensive studio setting. If you haven’t had a chance to visit us in our new home in the Tyler building (designed by Carlos Jimenez) on Temple’s Main Campus in Philadelphia, we hope you will come by soon! We are thrilled by and proud of our 10,000 square foot state of the art glass facility. The shops, studios, and equipment are amazing, and everything was planned and built with attention to health and safety.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

The Hot Shop has four benches and four glory holes (2 @ 16” 1 @ 24”, and 1 @ 30”), two 520# day tanks, and ten dedicated annealers.

The Hot Casting Shop is a generous space with a 710# dedicated casting furnace and seven dedicated annealers, including a large car kiln.

The Flameworking Studio has 4 Bobcat torches with dedicated annealers and Nederman arm ventilation.

The Cold Shop has all of the latest equipment including a drill press, bandsaw, and Merker and Czech lathes. It is adjacent to the Vapors Room, Sandblasting Room, and Spray Booth.

The Kiln Room is outfitted for kiln casting, fusing and slumping, with 16 dedicated kilns and a 1-ton crane for large molds.

The Majors Studio is a large studio in which each BFA major has a dedicated space. It is adjacent to the Critique/Installation Room, and the Graduate Studios; each graduate student has a private studio.

Tyler Glass Visiting Artists Spring 2010: part one

Welcome to Spring Semester - that means a new group of incredible visiting artists!

We started the semester with a visit from Maestro Gianni Toso. Longtime mentor to our second year grad student Amber Cowan, Toso astounded us with his energy and humor. In addition to his inspiring lecture, Toso spent the day doing flamework demos followed by hot blowing for hours.







Our next visitor – just two weeks ago - was Tina Oldknow, Curator of Modern Glass at Corning Museum of Glass. We were so thrilled that Tina was able to come to Tyler, and we made the very most of her time here! She spent her first day meeting with the undergraduate students, talking about the development of their work; they were amazed by her generosity of thought and spirit in her feedback. This was the first meeting with a curator for our undergrads, so it was really exciting. That evening, Tina gave an inspiring talk titled “The Wizard of Nancy and His Successors: Glass, Contemporary Art, and Alchemy,” a discussion of the life and work of Émile Gallé (1846 -1904), one of the major forces behind the Art Nouveau movement in France. Tina spent the next day doing studio visits with our graduate students; like the undergrads, the grads were totally impressed and awed by Tina’s energy, enthusiasm, and thoughtful feedback about their work. For more information about Tina Oldknow: http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=2176


Then we were thrilled to host Alissia Melka-Teichroew, founder and creative director of byAMT Inc (formerly known as AlissiaMT Design). We have been talking a lot about production this semester – form, function, and what it means to put yet another object out into our very cluttered world. We admire Alissia’s very spare and space-conscious designs – especially her insideout glasses. It was great to hear her talk about not only the inspiration for her designs but her design process and how things are produced and marketed. Alissia is a graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven and holds a Master of Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), USA. You can see her shot glasses here: http://www.emmohome.com/inside-out-shot-glass.html and our very favorite martini glasses here: http://www.gnr8.biz/product_info.php?products_id=752

That brings us up to date in the Visiting Artists world at Tyler Glass. Coming on March 24th is Melissa Milgrom, author of the just-released book "Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and in April we will host Sibylle Peretti and Stephen Paul Day – new post with details to come soon!

Tyler Glass Visiting Artists Fall 2009


We had an amazing lineup of visiting artists last fall – finally found the time to write about them! We decided to invite three artists at different stages in their careers: emerging, mid-career, and established. Our first visitor was Yuka Otani, an emerging artist. She gave a great lecture about her mixed media works and then spent the rest of the day doing technical demos. First, she showed us how to cast sugar drinking vessels (her own vessels: image 2; casting sugar: image 3), part of a large work in progress (we can’t wait to see the finished installation!). Then she worked in the hot shop to blow liquid sugar – beautiful (image 1)! She was so generous with time and also sharing the technical details of her work. Otani is a 2008 MFA from RISD and a 2000 BFA from Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan. www.yukaotani.com





Jocelyne Prince represented our mid-career artist. Prince is a conceptual artist working with glass and other sculptural media, and is an Assistant Professor in Glass at RISD. She brought incredible energy and spirit to Tyler – her lecture was awesome and we love the way that her work challenges so many preconceived notions about glass. Everyone was particularly struck by her use of performance and sound in creating experiential work, especially in these works in which molten glass captures the marks of sound (images 4 + 5). www.jocelyne.prince.com







Internationally renowned stained glass artist and fellow-Philadelphian Judith Schaechter – our established artist - closed the semester with a wonderful/inspiring/hilarious/brilliant lecture on creativity. Schaechter had everyone laughing with tears in their eyes, and her talk reminded us of the joy at the core of making our work. Schaechter is an internationally renowned artist working with stained glass. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a 2005 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1992 Pew Fellowship in the Arts (Crafts). She is represented by Claire Oliver in New York. www.judithschaechter.com

BETH LIPMAN Tyler BFA 1994

courtesy of the Glass Quarterly Blog: http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2010/03/01/hot-off-the-presses-glass-118-spring-2010/
The new issue of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly hits newsstands and subscriber mailboxes today. On the cover: A detail of Beth Lipman’s Still Life with Grapes (2007), a C-print that measures 29-inches high by 36-inches wide. Lipman’s icy three-dimensional realizations of opulent tableware on overcrowded tabletops are a frosty take on the excesses of our pre-crash era and hold up well as a meditation on their larger theme of mortality.

Lipman’s work reveals a sophisticated understanding of the parallels between Dutch still lives and contemporary glass art. Both forms are showcases of virtuosic skill, and Lipman takes the correspondences between 17th-century painting and 21st-century glass further. Her works are powerful meditations on extravagant indulgence and the nature of mortality. Those interested in seeing her work first-hand can visit her exhibition at Heller Gallery from March 5th – 27th (opening reception on March 4th).

http://www.bethlipman.com/