Visit 2022 Venice Biennale Online!

Join the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass (AACG) this Tuesday, June 21, at 2 p.m. (Eastern Time) for the next Fired Up! education series program. Art critic / curator William Warmus will review artworks in glass at the 2022 Venice Biennale and talk about the 2022 exhibit for Glasstress.

View of Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Campiello della Pescheria 4

Bill just returned from visiting Venice and can give us great insights into how glass is being used in art today by artists from around the world. He will also talk about Glasstress, a project by Adriano Berengo to further Berengo’s mission to promote the use of glass in the world of contemporary art. The first Glasstress exhibition was launched in 2009 to establish a new platform for art made with glass and was founded as a collateral event of the Venice Biennale. This is the seventh edition of Glasstress, where Berengo Studios has brought together a group of leading contemporary artists from Europe, the United States, Latin America, Africa and China in an ambitious exhibition that explores the infinite creative possibilities of glass. The works are hosted inside the Berengo Art Space Foundation in Murano, an old abandoned furnace transformed a few years ago into a suggestive exhibition space.

Click HERE to register for this online event.

This program is open to the public. Feel free to invite others to attend.

Habatat Galleries Celebrates 50 Years

This Friday, September 3rd, Michigan’s Habatat Galleries presents the opening of Glass Art Fair exhibition at 11:00 a.m. ET. This will be the VIP preview day for the online art fair as it opens to the public virtually the next day. This presentation includes many of available works that will be featured in the Habatat Galleries 50th in-person celebration.

Michael Janis’ kilncast glass is featured in Habatat Galleries 50th Anniversary exhibit.

Artists from around the world have been invited to this event and the gallery expects a large turnout since all have been apart for so long. During the pandemic Habatat has been pioneering the world of virtual glass art events including Glass49, GlassArtFair, the new annual Not Grandma’s Glass exhibition, and the highly apropos Viral Glass exhibition. Director Aaron Schey has created a treasure trove of digital presentations over the last year via Habatat Now programs which are viewable on YouTube.

Gallery founder Ferdinand Hampson shares his thoughts about Habatat’s Legacy: Founded in 1971, Habatat has promoted, legitimized, and elevated a new art material to a point of recognition by the art community. Fifty years later we evolved with glass. We continue our efforts towards the mainstream though we are no longer outsiders. Fine art collectors, museums, and noted art publications have in many cases recognized the medium and shared in the excitement of what this material can do and be, in the hands of creative artists worldwide.

Tim Tate and Michael Janis’ collaborative work – “The Poetry of Everyday Objects” is featured.

"Material World" Artist Talk at artdc Gallery

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Material World opened this weekend at artdc Gallery. The show focuses on artists and how they balance the use of materials and content.

This Saturday from 2-3 pm there will be a gallery talk featuring three artists: Sherill Anne Gross, Marie Ringwald and Michael Janis.

Material World
artdc Gallery

5710 Baltimore Avenue, Hyattsville, MD

Open thru April 3, 2011

Artists exhibiting include: Michael Janis, Marie Ringwald, Matthew Langely, JT Kirkland, Katherine Mann and Sherill Anne Gross. A second artist talk featuring Matt Langley will be held Saturday, April 2.

Marie Ringwald
Chunky Patchwork Sheds
paint, wood, tar paper, various metals + nails
; each about 6.5″ high x 5.5″ x 5.5″

Curator Stephen Boocks writes in the catalog of the show: “Marie Ringwald refers to herself as a minimalist but most viewers would not readily characterize her work that way.There are clear associations to architectural structures, primarily warehouses and barns…For Ringwald, developing in the 60s and 70s, minimalist abstraction seemed the most natural way of making art. After years of working in this manner she realized she was incorporating these architectural elements into her abstract works began asking, “Why not bring them out into the open? Why not incorporate the actual materials used in the construction of these structures?”

Michael Janis
Again and Again – glass, fused glass powder imagery, steel, 20″ x 20″

In the exhibition catalog “Material World – Art Supplies in the Twentyfirst Century” curator Boocks writes: “When most people think of glass art, they typically think of blown glass (or hot glass) vessels like those of Dale Chihuly… Michael Janis works in the warm glass method that fuses glass elements together into one piece by layering multiple glass sheets together. The virtuosity of Janis’ technique supports his imagery, which is often tinged with a nostalgia for days where innocence reigned and magic seemed possible. Janis is not simply naïve, for there is a darker undercurrent to these works that speaks to the loss of this sense of wonder.”

Sherill Anne Gross
Blood Sweat and Tears – paper, 18″ x 11″

“To say Sherill Anne Gross is obsessed with paper is an understatement. When the local Pearl art supply store went out of business, Gross purchased all of her favorite papers and many others to build quite a stock of materialsShe is not only obsessive about her materials but also about her technique”…writes Boocks.

Here is a video of talented paper artist Sherill Gross as she cuts out her signature:

Click HERE for a link to the artdc Gallery catalog of the Material World exhibition.

‘New Glass Review’ features Washington Glass School artist

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The Corning Museum of Glass hosts a yearly international review of glass in a publication from Germany called New Glass Review (Neues Glas).

This year’s judges included Rachel Berwick, Department Head of Glass, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island; Mieke Groot, independant curator, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Tina Oldknow, the Curator of Modern Glass for Corning Museum, Corning, New York; and Dante Marioni, glass superstar, Seattle, Washington.

A total of 1,047 artists from 43 countries sent 2,974 images of work for consideration. Of these 100 were selected for inclusion in New Glass Review 30, and I am thrilled to be one of those 100! The publication is due in May, and the images will be part of the Corning Museum’s Rakow Research Library.

Michael Janis