Josiah McElheny – Glass Blower
Josiah McElheny 
stands apart from his art contemporaries as a trained hands-on artist who puts meaning behind his works. McElheny is a New York based artist who creates works of beautiful hand blown glass. His glass objects are alluring, simply because of the fact that they're made of glass. No matter how humble a simple drinking glass may be, there's always a mystery to it; because it's solid and transparent, and it's solid and it's fragile.[1] McElheny is an expert glassblower and artist, taking inspirations from books, classic paintings, history, and objects he sees around him. He reacts to art and culture of both the past and the present. McElheny’s glassblowing techniques and his stylistic elements create a unique venture from his contemporaries as he turns ideas into productions.
stands apart from his art contemporaries as a trained hands-on artist who puts meaning behind his works. McElheny is a New York based artist who creates works of beautiful hand blown glass. His glass objects are alluring, simply because of the fact that they're made of glass. No matter how humble a simple drinking glass may be, there's always a mystery to it; because it's solid and transparent, and it's solid and it's fragile.[1] McElheny is an expert glassblower and artist, taking inspirations from books, classic paintings, history, and objects he sees around him. He reacts to art and culture of both the past and the present. McElheny’s glassblowing techniques and his stylistic elements create a unique venture from his contemporaries as he turns ideas into productions. Josiah McElheny, a MacArthur fellow
, went to the Rhode Island School of Design
to study photography originally, but the glass department captured his interests more. He loved the very exclusive, secretive guild community of the glass factory culture, and its long oral preservation and small circle of people who understood its language and methodology. The production of glass is expensive and difficult, and requires a number of people working together in a sort of apprenticeship tradition.[2] He went on to study with several glass masters, honing his skills, and becoming a master himself, possessing a familiarity with methods that date back centuries.
, went to the Rhode Island School of Design to study photography originally, but the glass department captured his interests more. He loved the very exclusive, secretive guild community of the glass factory culture, and its long oral preservation and small circle of people who understood its language and methodology. The production of glass is expensive and difficult, and requires a number of people working together in a sort of apprenticeship tradition.[2] He went on to study with several glass masters, honing his skills, and becoming a master himself, possessing a familiarity with methods that date back centuries. McElheny uses his craft as he continues to explore what has become his primary field of interest in recent years: questioning the legacy of Modernism, and probing the very function of art—its use in a world in which our relation to objects is almost exclusively that of consumers rather than of producers.[3] McElheny exploits the nature of glass, in a true modernist feel in many of his works, by having the viewer contemplate the materialality of the glass—its transparency, reflection, illumination, and emptiness. Some of his stances on Modernism include claiming glass as the ultimate modern material because its nature is transparency and perfection, a twentieth century bigoted idea of being perfect, without differences. Most of his pieces play on the idea of Modernity, its influence in the past as well as the present. He himself often follows the Modernist idea that process and materials dictate form.[4]
My work is generated from the study of the culture and ideas connected to objects, whether contemporary or antique. I believe that all cultural, physical manifestations are on a continuum. A contemporary art object exists with all the associations we apply to it. And it changes. To be human and alive is to respond to the ideas of others and of yourself and to apply those ideas to the physical world.[6]
Many of McElheny’s pieces try to tap into central human questions of who we are and where we come from; what, if anything, is original about us—of our own aspirations in a confusing world, full of endless ideologies and competing influences.[7] “Politically, I’m against finding the single answer,” McElheny insists. “I’m more interested in what these questions mean to our sense of who we are.[8]
He does not believe in creating “original” art, because all of his work is derived from some previous source, and what he’s doing is re-imagining something or shifting or transforming it slightly but always very much in connection to its source. He is interested in the past, especially because art is essentially a physical remnant of a moment.[9] His desire is to bring these objects and ideas and contexts into the modern world. The way in which he does so is by masterfully creating these seductive, reflective pieces that are so attractive to the general public. He believes that in today’s materialistic society that if something is to be of value then it has to have a kind of gravity and importance to it. He gets the viewer into his works with his highly or all-reflective objects, because the viewer sees himself in it. In other ways he tries to create a perfect, pristine utopian feel to his works.[10]
I believe his works accomplish all that McElheny sets out to do concerning his artistic methodologies. McElheny’s works are intoxicating to look at and to study. They capture and awe you. I am greatly impressed with his research and training. Very few artists today seem to care about expertise or craftsmanship, especially those who remove their hands completely from the production process. I personally think that art has been slandered and defaced by contemporary artists who love pushing the limits of art. I believe there should be a mastering of craft and skill. Because of McElheny and other 20th and 21st Century glass-blowers, glass-blowing can no longer been seen only as a craft or a trade. McElheny has emphasized the materiality of glass in a very Greenbergian fashion of Modernism, and done so powerfully.
His works are not about “sticking it to the man” or using common everyday materials in new ways just to make art. He creates legitimate, beautiful, stand alone works that aren’t about making art for art’s sake. They are about something. He reacts to art and culture of both the past and present, but does so with a real honed and learned skill. This makes him and his works unique.
Bibliography
Programs. Performed by Josiah McElheny. 2005.
Browne, Alex. "The Big Picture." New York Times
, September 26, 2008: MM64.
, September 26, 2008: MM64.Hixson, Kathryn. "Glass, Apprenticeship, and Josiah McElheney." New Art Examiner, 2001
: 72.
: 72.Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
. January 28, 2009.
. January 28, 2009.mcelheny_en.html (accessed Oct 22, 2009).
Tarlow, Lois. "Profile: Josiah McElheny." ArtNew England, Ag/S 2002: 21-23.
Volk, Gregory. "An Infinity of Objects." Art in America, 2006: 166-169.
[1] Lois Tarlow, "Profile: Josiah McElheny," Art New England, Ag/S 2002: 22
[2] Lois Tarlow, "Profile: Josiah McElheny," Art New England, Ag/S 2002: 21.
[3] Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,”Josiah McElheny-A Space for an Island Universe,” January 28, 2009; available fromhttp://www.museoreinasofia.es/exposiciones/expos-pasadas/2009/josiah-mcelheny_en.html Internet; accessed June 11, 2009).
[4] Kathryn Hixson, "Glass, Apprenticeship, and Josiah McElheney," New Art Examiner, 2001: 72.
[5] Lois Tarlow, "Profile: Josiah McElheny," Art New England, Ag/S 2002: 21.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Gregory Volk, "An Infinity of Objects," Art in America, 2006: 169
[8] Alex Browne, "The Big Picture," New York Times, September 26, 2008: MM64.
[9] Art: 21--Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 3, Episode: "Memory," Directed by PBS Home Programs; performed by Josiah McElheny, 2005.
No comments:
Post a Comment