July 12, 2008

• Chihuly

  I saw glass artist Dale Chihuly's work for the first time in the mid-90s, probably around 1996 or so, at the Harn Museum of Art at the Universit of Florida, in Gainesville.  I was pretty dazzled back then by it, and it always held a soft spot with me.

  Well, in the last decade, he's gone on to more recognition and more projects, and I think he and his team have gotten even better.  He's got a good display here currently at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco that was a treat to wander about.

   

  It was a nice gloss of various periods and pieces he's known for, starting with his "Venetians," traditional Venice-inspired vases with fanciful and organic non-traditional ornamentation.  It also had some of his "Ikebana" pieces.  Named after the buddhist tradition of flower arrangement, it was a variation away from the elaborate Venetians, in that the vases were more traditional looking.  But rather than use real flowers, he created glass flowers to be arranged instead, thus creating a whole composition.

  A whole room was dedicated to "Tabac Baskets," pieces inspired when he saw many traditional Native American woven baskets being taken out of storage at a museum.  These baskets had been slightly deformed by their storage, and it inspired him to create glass representations of them.  They tend to be more monochromatic and unifomly earth-toned, but the also have a little ornamental pigment, usually near the rim.  They are on display at the De Young with some of Chihuly's personal collections of baskets -- both glass and basket intermixed with each other -- and an entire wall of various woven Native American cloth blankets.

  

  "Chandeliers" are hanging pieces of frightening proportion and dazzling colors, each piece focusing on a single color or very close range of color.  I'd seen them before at the Harn.  He also had some of what he called "Persians," a name he admits he conjured up to capture the exotic feel, rather than a specific origin.  They look rather like flowers or coral buds, and the large installation he had at the De Young were all orange.

  One type that you may have seen on display before were his "Reeds," a type of long blown tube of colored glass.  He's fond of putting these in outdoor installations.  I think there may still be some at the Harn.  There are some at Bellagio as well (he also has a gallery there of some of his work for sale).  The De Young ones were lavender colored and mounted onto fallen tree logs.

  

  Another exhibit, "Boats" is on display.  Two wooden boats are filled to overflowing with glass spheres in one boat and organic "flowers" in the other.  The boats are in a dark room set on dark mirrors -- Chihuly tends to display and photograph his pieces in galleries and studios on a dark background and carefully lit, and, indeed, I have to give huge props to the team that help light his scultpures at the De Young.  Some of his bowls in "Macchia" appeared to be lit from within, as opposed to from above, a spectacular effect with some of them.

  Possibly my favorite installation of the exhibit is his "Persian Ceiling."  You walk into a room, where above you there is a lowered ceiling of glass, and bright lights mounted in the real ceiling above.  In between the glass and lighting, he's filled the space with his "Persians," as well as some represenatational forms, such as cherubs, octopii, starfish, trillobites, and other somewhat-recognizeable shapes.  The whole effect makes it feel like you're underwater.  It's incredibly soothing and dazzling at the same time.

  

  

  There are also a couple of displays scattered about of his conceptualizing paintings interspersed, particularly around his Ikebana pieces and "Black," mostly black pieces with splashes of color that leap out at the eye.

  The last section in the exhibit is "Mille Fiori," Italian for "Thousand Flowers."  Indeed, this last section feels like a walk through the gardens in Alice in Wonderland.  Mounted as usual on dark mirrors in a black room and carefully lit from above, this installation is quite long and demands a full orbit of your attention.

  

  

   All in all, this was a terrific tour of his pieces, styles, and even a little of his thoughts and inspiration and history.  Granted, bright, shiny, supersaturated color tends to get and hold my attention; but Chihuly's scale, execution, and imagination deserve recognition.  It's nice, too, when an artist is appreciated in his own lifetime, and observing the attendees' reactions, delight and awe were typical responses that echoed my own.

  (Most pictures above were used without permission from the Chihuly website about the De Young installation, but a few were from my own phone camera)

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