Q. What do Wurlitzer-motif room dividers and houses on tea saucers have in common? A. They’re made of kilnformed glass and have been included over the last twenty years in the New Glass Review, the Corning Museum’s annual survey of the state of the art of glass – a tradition explored through past and present works by twenty artists running concurrent with Bullseye’s biennial conference on kiln-glass.
Portland, OR –The Bullseye Connection Gallery presents “20/20: Twenty Artists / Twenty Years.” The survey of kiln-glass selected from the Corning New Glass Review 1985 – 2005 will be on view from June 24 – August 20, 2005 and coincides with BECon 2005, an international conference on professional practices in the medium of kilnformed glass.
“Every year a chorus of lamentation and a few shrieks of joy echo around the world as the results of the New Glass Review are announced” says gallery director Lani McGregor. “This selected survey is intended to celebrate past winners and enlighten future entrants on the always painful process of being judged.”
The Corning New Glass Review is juried annually by the head curator of the Corning Museum of Glass and three to four other professional curators, critics, dealers or artists who are invited each year from the field of contemporary studio glass. Out of close to 1000 submissions, 100 are selected that in the jurors’ opinions represent the cutting edge within the international glass community, while also reflecting a broad diversity of aesthetics, concepts and techniques.
As is typical of any rigorous competition, more entrants are crushed than elated. Within each technical sector arises the inevitable suspicion that the jurors have been biased against a particular method, inclined only towards a specific aesthetic, or simply hell-bent on turning egos to hamburger.
Bullseye’s biennial glass conference for kiln-glass professionals, being held in Portland from July 14 – 17, will offer palliative treatment for bruised souls with two educational offerings: the first, a keynote address by Corning Curator of Modern Glass, Tina Oldknow, on the who, what and why of winning. The second insight for conference participants will be the 20/20 exhibition that highlights a selection of current works by past winners, shown side-by-side with documentation of their prior successful NGR entry.
Exhibiting artists include: Ray Ahlgren, USA; Galia Amsel, New Zealand; Anna Boothe, USA; Ruth Brockmann, USA; Judi Elliott, Australia; Mel George, Australia/USA; Hartmann Greb, Germany; Deborah Horrell, USA; Anja Isphording, Germany/Canada; Richard LaLonde, USA; Jeremy Lepisto, USA; Jessica Loughlin, Australia; Richard Marquis, USA; Catharine Newell, USA; Brenda Page, Australia; Kirstie Rea, Australia; Frank van den Ham, Netherlands; Richard Whiteley, Australia.
Because the NGR is by application, not invitation, in recent years a “Jurors’ Choice” section has been added to the review in order that jurors might be able to include works by artists who may not have submitted but whose work, in the jurors’ eyes, merited special note that year,
A special separate exhibit of selected Jurors’ Choice works will also be mounted in the gallery’s upper chambers and will include works in kilnformed glass by Giles Bettison, Australia; Stuart Keeler, USA; Silvia Levenson, Argentina/Italy; Klaus Moje, Germany/Australia; Preston Singletary, USA; Jun Kaneko, Japan/USA; Mark Zirpel, USA.
Further conference information may be found at www.beconference.com .
Download: 20/20 April 21, 2005
