Sunday 8 January 2017

Chihuly

Well, one of my 2017 thoughts was to blog more, and, of course, I haven't so far! Total failure. Boo.
However, last week I spent an afternoon at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) in Toronto, to catch the final week of the Chihuly Exhibition.
Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor, and his huge colourful creations are considered unique in the field of blown glass.
Is it art? He no longer blows the glass himself. His pieces are created by a team of master glassblowers and assistants under his direction in a huge studio workshop, and he has had exhibitions and large scale installations in many cities around the world, often showing similar forms and shapes. It's definitely an industry of excess.
Not everyone thinks that Chihuly glass belongs in the museum. The Toronto Star definitely agrees.
However, the pieces on display were memorable, full of light and colour and form. I couldn't help myself clicking the camera over and over.
Float Boat

Ikebana Boat

Icicle Chandeliers and Towers. Hundreds of pieces of blown glass are assembled around sturdy steel frameworks, and lit from external sources.  All displayed on a black perspex floor to enhance the reflections.

Laguna Torcello. Stroll around this intricate garden of glass and enjoy the flowers and organic shapes. This installation includes floats, reeds, crystals, and white belugas.
It looks like an underwater scene.

On looking closely, there are sea urchins, octopus, fish, crabs, seashells, seaweed.... on a lagoon island in Venice, one of  the sculptors favourite places.

Sapphire Neon Tumbleweeds 2016.  Featuring large bundles of linear factory made tubes that were heated and bent to curvilinear shapes, these Tumbleweeds resemble plant forms or even diagrams of atoms. 

Jerusalem Cylinders.  Pre-formed glass elements in the shape of sharp edged crystals are fused to cylindrical vessels, evoking the massive stones making up the walls of the Citadel in Jerusalem.

Red Reeds on Logs.  Glass reeds are presented on Ontario birch logs. Some of the reeds are 3 metres long, the glassblowers achieving this by pulling the hot molten glass downwards from a mechanical lift.
Spiked crystal tower of stalactites and stalagmites.
How do you move an installation like this from one city to another? Carefully, that's how.
This exhibition contains thousands of pieces of glass, each one fitted in it's individual cushioned heavy gauge cardboard container, and then loaded onto six 52' transport trucks filled from floor to roof.
More pictures to come.....



11 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! Love all of it. I didn't know this work. Thank you for sharing.

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  2. I think his work is amazing, and you took some incredible photos too. Beautiful.

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  3. A wonderful visual feast! It sure makes one notice colors and forms. Beautiful!!

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  4. Oh you are so lucky to have seen this!!! I love Chihuly's work and it's my dream to go to his museum in Seattle. I've seen some of his pieces in hotels, etc but to see this many in one place would be amazing.

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  5. I adore his work, and my eyes are a bit green.
    We saw an exhibit years ago when it came to Canberra, and went several times. There was a ceiling of glass, and we lay under it to savour the details.

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  6. Beautiful work. My granddaughter, who is studying at the Academy of Fine Arts majoring in "glass", would be on display for a long time and admired. Regards.

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  7. May this year be wonderful for you. !

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  8. Beautiful stuff, be it art or not. "De gustibus non est diputandum."

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  9. Happy new Year,Shamic!
    Beautiful works!
    Wonderful 2017 to you!

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  10. My goodness - I never thought of how they would transport all this glass! Yikes - must be a nightmare!! Oh so beautiful though.

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  11. Whatever else one might say about the man, you've got to admit his craftsmanship and artistry are beyond amazing!

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