Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941). Macchia Forest (2008). M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco. Photograph by Terry Rishel.
© 2010 Dale Chihuly.
The site-specific installation of glasswork produced by the innovative Chihuly and his Seattle studio artisan assistants from 1980 to the present includes objects that represent the artist's most important series.
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Seaforms (1980) is comprised of transparent sculptures of thin colored glass that imitate the shapes and rhythms of marine life.
Macchia (1981) utilized hundreds of colors in rippling forms based on vases from the Venini glass factory in Venice, Italy.
Persians (1986) was inspired by exotic Middle Eastern glass from the 12th to the 14th Century.
Venetians (1988) was a group of works influenced by a famous Italian Art Deco glass master.
Ikebana (1989) was informed by the Japanese art of floral arrangement.
Chihuly at the Frist features a spectacular Mille Fiori or Thousand Flowers garden and the artist's Sea Blue and Green Tower, a colorful massive sculpture with curving forms that rises nearly 10 feet in the air and occupies an entire gallery. Drawings and DocumentaryAlso on view is a wall of Chihuly's drawings. They serve as independent works of art as well as blueprints for his glassblowers to follow and improvise upon. The documentary Chihuly in the Hotshop (2007) runs continuously in the show. The film recounts the artist's reunion with his fellow glassblowers for one week in 2006 and their creation of amazing works at Tacoma, Washington's Museum of Glass in front of a live audience. Susan H. Edwards, Executive Director of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, said, "We are delighted to present the work of Dale Chihuly, whose international stature and acclaim stem from the boldness with which he honors ancient glassmaking traditions while exploding them into configurations of pure color, transformed space and exuberant natural form. Chihuly has bridged the divide that separates craft from fine art, populist appeal from artistic rigor and visual pleasure from the expression of human meaning." SourceAnglin, Timothy. The Art of Dale Chihuly (exh. cat.). San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008.
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