Glass works or products can provide wonderful inspirations and those interested in exploring further this world, should check "Bohemian Glass: The Great Glass Masters", an exhibition (running until November 26th) at Le Stanze del Vetro on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice.
The event allows visitors to immerse themselves in the rich culture of Bohemian glass and become acquainted with the work of leading figures in the Czech glassmaking community.
These artists were born in the Czech lands during the 1920s and 1930s, but ended up navigating through turbulent societal changes. They lived indeed through Europe's largest-ever military conflict, followed by a brief period of freedom and democracy, only to fall under totalitarian rule in 1948 and eventually return to the standards of European democracy after 1989.
These glassmaking innovators played a pivotal role in shaping and elevating European glass craftsmanship. They were constantly driven to innovate the glass production, spurred on by competition from other European glassmaking centers, particularly in Germany and Italy, which dominated the global market for decorative glass.
In the early 1900s, Venice and Prague departed from the intersecting paths they had followed since the Middle Ages and embarked on distinct creative journeys, exploring novel techniques.
During the 20th century, Murano primarily focused on harnessing the chromatic qualities of its glass, blowing it into bubbles and utilizing them as a canvas for the application of color. Meanwhile, in Bohemia, artists embarked on a different path by fusing glass to create solid volumes, which seemed to dematerialize when illuminated by light.
Bohemian masters also embraced innovative techniques such as casting, involving the melting of glass in open molds, to craft abstract sculptures. Some of these sculptures reached monumental sizes, giving the impression of transparent stones.
This exhibition showcases the works of six prominent contemporary glass sculptors: Václav Cigler, Vladimír Kopecký, Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, René Roubíček, and Miluše Roubíčková.
All of these artists were alumni of the Prague Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design (UMPRUM) where they received guidance from the accomplished painter, sculptor, glass artist, and art theorist Josef Kaplický.
UMPRUM, originally founded in Austro-Hungarian Prague in 1885 as a school of applied arts, continued to operate even after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Its arts department played a pivotal role in the glass furnaces and textile factories of northern Bohemia.
Through its dedicated departments in glass, textiles, metalworking, and ceramics, UMPRUM introduced an innovative approach to the study of the arts and successfully maintained its creative independence during the Communist regime.
The exhibition opens with the pieces created by Miluše Roubíčková. Her watercolor and pen on paper drawings, depicting floral arrangements and candies in glass jars, adorn the walls of the first gallery while a table, covered in glass confections, invites visitors to visually feast on and explore her works (yarn and knitwear designers, please check out their colors, blends of shades and textures).
Among her creations are glass jars filled with candies, sliced jelly cakes ready to be served, and also dishes featuring snails, fish, giant mushrooms, cabbage heads, and fried eggs, dripping from the edge of the table, melting like Salvador Dali's eggs.
Roubíčková's works combine her passion for glass with her feminine sensibility, setting them apart from the contributions of other artists showcased in the exhibition, including her husband, René Roubíček.
His iconic 1966 Nest chandelier, composed of 54 hand-shaped clear glass elements, hangs from the ceiling in the first room dedicated to Roubíčková.
Roubíčková embarked on designing objects shortly after her graduation, earning a Silver Medal at the 11th Triennale in Milan. Her intricately carved bowl was also featured in the subsequent triennial in 1960.
Apart from her banquet of 65 multicolored hand-blown glass artworks (crafted between 1960 and 2012), the section dedicated to her also showcases stylized, multi-colored or clear glass representations of women's heads with long hair or adorned with hats, all created by the artist in the 1970s.
The next room, dedicated to René Roubíček, features abstract and architecturally inspired cut and polished pieces made from clear optical glass and multi-colored hot-shaped glass.
Among these works there are columns from the 1960s crafted from hot-shaped amber and clear glass, as well as uranium and crystal hand-shaped glass pieces with metal elements.
Columns became René Roubíček's trademark after his groundbreaking glass installation at the 1958 Expo in Brussels, followed by a successful glass column fountain exhibited at the 1967 Expo in Montreal within the main hall of the Czechoslovak pavilion. Roubíček continued to incorporate these architectural element into his work.
He also educated other glassmakers and contributed to industrial design, making sculptures for prominent exhibitions showcasing Czech glass. His pieces were mainly made using hot glass techniques by glassblowers Josef Rozinek, then Petr Novotný and Jiří Pačinek.
His architectural interventions such as light fixtures for interior spaces, designed from the 1960s onwards, also played a major role in his output.
The sculpture "Cloud - Source of Life (Atomic Cloud)", displayed at the 1970 Expo in Osaka, remains one of his most famous works, among the most important in the history of Czech Post-War glass art. The section dedicated to him also features multi-colored pieces such as his "Little Cosmo", and his glass clarinets.
Fashion and accessories designers who get their inspirations from geometries should pay attention to the next room, dedicated to Václav Cigler.
The experimenter, sculptor, architect, jewel designer and philosopher, made his name as a glass creator and teacher. He established a study program for glass in architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, directing its educational content between 1965 and 1979.
Cigler differs from other artists in his approach, focusing not only on the materiality of glass but also on the dialogues his pieces can engage with viewers.
His geometric creations possess indeed special optical qualities that allow visitors to immerse themselves in the mesmerizing light refractions they produce.
"Glass is a material of light (...) an exclusive and irreplaceable material," Cigler once stated.
"Glass is equally material as it is immaterial, equally real as it is unreal, equally distinct as it is self-transcending, questioning the experience of our senses. Glass is a material both programmed and with a life of its own."
The configuration of his geometrical pieces reveals special optical qualities that allow visitors to lose themselves in the light refractions they produce and to get radically different perspectives of the same piece, depending from where they stand.
The pieces included in the room dedicated to him embody his vision: there are perfectly cut and polished clear optical glass prisms, spheres and cones; these spatial studies that at times look like high-tech spacecrafts, seem to integrate within their structures other geometries (pay attention, fashion and accessory designers - can we integrate multiple geometries in one design? In which ways? With which materials? Employ Cigler's works as a starting point for this research).
Cigler also collaborated with architect Michal Motyčka on joint projects, installations, and spatial interventions, all centered around simple geometries and minimalism.
Their architectural interventions in interiors, exteriors, and gardens - including their kinetic intervention on Titian's painting "The Flaying of Marsyas" in the gallery of the Archiepiscopal Castle in Kroměříž - became renowned. The section dedicated to Cigler also includes charcoal and pastel drawings from 1995 to 1999.
Vladimír Kopecký's work is instead more centered on bursts of colors. As a painter, graphic artist, installation designer, performer, and teacher, this artist often adopted an expressive yet minimalistic approach.
Some critics argue that Kopecký intentionally creates what might be considered unattractive or "ugly" glass because his focus lies not in attractiveness but in expressiveness. His pieces, though tempestuous in appearance, reveal a highly contemplative quality.
The centerpiece of the room dedicated to him appears as a work in progress, comprising a series of glass panels stained with red, orange, yellow, and blue paint and surrounded by cables and tools. This industrial piece offers a more punk approach to glass, breaking away from the polished style seen in previous spaces.
The final room of the exhibition is dedicated to Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, renowned for their collaborative art using the open mold fused glass technique.
Libenský taught multiple generations of Czech artists at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague between 1963 and 1987.
In 1954, he was appointed headmaster of the glass-making school in Zelezny Brod, where he met Jaroslava Brychtová.
Brychtová, hailing from a family of artists, had already experimented with fused glass alongside her father, sculptor Jaroslav Brychta.
The fused glass technique became her contribution to their collaborative art, as Libenský had primarily worked on painting glass before their partnership. Together, they created all their joint works using the open mold fused glass technique in their Pelechov workshop.
They applied this technique to architectural installations both domestically and abroad.
Following Libenský's passing, Brychtová completed their final joint project, the windows in the chapel of Špilberk Castle in Brno, and subsequently lived in seclusion from 2003 until her passing in 2020.
In the section dedicated to them, visitors will find their striking etched blown glass piece painted with transparent enamels entitled "Crucifixion" (1947-48). It resembles an imposing cabinet or an oversized elongated cilindrical crusader helmet with a stylized cut creating a luminous cross.
The exhibition closes with 19 photographs by Josef Sudek, from the "Glass Labyrinths" series. Sudek started producing photographs before World War I.
Injured in 1917 near Udine on the Italian front, Sudek lost his right arm, then returned to study at the State Graphic School in Prague in the early '20s, specializing in commercial work and advertising.
Sudek embraced photography at the beginning of the Second World War; his most prominent works date from 1940 to 1970, when he achieved his fully distinctive expression.
Looking at the relationship between glass and photography in the Czech Republic, the "Glass Labyrinths" cycle (1963-1972) was created in his flat in Prague, and at the 1970 Prague exhibition Contemporary Czech Glass.
Organized in collaboration with the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, "Bohemian Glass" offers a compact yet pleasant experience that caters even to those visitors with limited time (the Stanze del Vetro exhibition space is not huge, but the galleries are well-organized and at the end of your visit you can have a rest in the neat and relaxing library space), providing an opportunity to explore the world of glassmakers and discover inspiring insights.
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