Behind the Glass

Home

Top five curious ancient glass objects

As you channel surf over a long, rainy weekend, chances are you will stumble upon a TV show that claims to reveal “secrets of the Egyptians” or “mysteries of the Romans.” Although the claims of these shows range from provocative to outrageous – forgotten technologies! time travelers! aliens! – they lure us in because there is so much we still don’t know about the ancient world.

As we were putting together curious and unexplained objects in the Rakow Research Library’s collection for the exhibition Curious and Curiouser: Surprising Finds from the Rakow Library, I began to ponder curious objects in the ancient glass collection. Here are five of the most curious objects that have caused researchers to stop, think, reconsider, and restudy. Read more →

GlassBarge launches today at ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina in Brooklyn Bridge Park

GlassBarge launch in Brooklyn.

The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) today launches GlassBarge through May 28 at One°15 Brooklyn Marina in Brooklyn Bridge Park, kicking off a four-month tour celebrating the 150th anniversary of the canal journey to bring glassmaking to Corning. GlassBarge is offering free public glassblowing demonstrations aboard a 30’ x 80’ canal barge specially equipped with the Museum’s patented all-electric glassmaking equipment. Following its debut in New York City, GlassBarge will then travel north on the Hudson River, and westward along the Erie Canal, stopping in Yonkers, Kingston, the Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester areas, and Buffalo, among other cities.

Glass Pilgrim Murano: Honoring tradition and emerging talent

The island of Murano, Italy, sits just off the coast of Venice. Since 1291, when Venetian law decreed that all glass furnaces from Venice be moved to the island, it has been one of the world’s most important centers of glass knowledge and technical skill. Muranese glassmakers and the culture they have built around their craft have inspired and intrigued glass enthusiasts the world over for centuries.

The Glass Art Society is hosting their annual conference on Murano May 17 through 19, and the glass world could not be more excited. As the anticipation builds for this trip, I was reminded of my last visit to this glass Mecca in 2014, and the stories I encountered. Read more →

New Glass Review(ed): Memories from 4 decades (part 2)

Tali Grinshpan, Promises, featured in
New Glass Review 39 (2018).

For almost 40 years, The Corning Museum of Glass has published the highly-regarded periodical New Glass Review (NGR), a showcase of 100 artworks by 100 artists. Most recently, New Glass Review has been curated by Susie Silbert, curator of modern and contemporary glass at the Museum, and a group of her peers. With established artists and designers sharing the page alongside students new to the medium, New Glass Review is a diverse reflection of the innovation and ideas thriving in contemporary glass today.

In 2019, The Corning Museum of Glass celebrates the publication’s 40th anniversary with both an exhibition in print and a physical exhibition at CMoG, New Glass 2019, which will feature the works selected for New Glass Review 40. Artists, craftspeople, designers, and architects are invited to submit images of new works made in glass—including video works and performance art in which glass plays a fundamental role—for New Glass 2019. Emerging and established artists, as well as students from around the world are encouraged to put forward work for consideration. Works must have been made between 2015 and 2018. We invite you to submit your work.

As we fondly look back on 40 groundbreaking years, we asked artists from past and present to talk about the impact of New Glass Review on their careers. Read more →

The Studio Announces 2018 Residency Recipients

2018 Artists-In-Residence at The Studio

Anne Vibeke Mou
March 22-April 20; Public lecture April 12

Anne Vibeke Mou, Diamond Window

Originally from Denmark, artist and engraver Anne Vibeke Mou has been studying and working in the United Kingdom for almost 20 years. Her interests lie predominantly in the connections between glass and environment, object and place, and the medieval history of both regions has helped to shape her work in rich and revealing ways.

Mou practices a meticulous stippling process (engraving a surface with numerous small dots) using a handheld solitaire diamond tool. She is excited to access the Rakow Research Library’s resources to further her research into waldglas (forest glass) and historical sites of relevance. During her residency in March and April 2018, Mou will produce a series of delicate objects “containing traces of organic material from carefully chosen locations,” she says.

GlassBarge. Rendering by McLaren Engineering Group.

The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) today announced the receipt of $469,625 in grants through Empire State Development’s I LOVE NEW YORK program, the New York State Canal Corporation, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative. This generous funding will support the launch of GlassBarge in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the canal journey to bring glassmaking to Corning, New York, and will further CMoG’s participation in the statewide celebration of the Erie Canal Bicentennial.

In 1868, the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company relocated to Corning, via the New York Waterways, and evolved into the company that is today known as Corning Incorporated. In celebration of this pivotal journey, CMoG will launch GlassBarge—a canal barge equipped with CMoG’s patented all-electric glassmaking equipment—in Brooklyn in May 2018.

Nocturnes Installation in white bronze. Photography:
Martin Polak. Provided by Karen LaMonte.

The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) and Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) announced today their selection of Karen LaMonte as the Specialty Glass Artist-in-Residence in 2018.

The residency is a joint program of the Museum and Corning that gives the selected artist access to specialty glass materials, scientists, and curators to experiment and explore new areas of their practice. LaMonte is the fifth specialty glass resident since the program’s inception in 2014. Her residency will begin on January 1 and will continue through the end of the year.

LaMonte is best known for her life-sized, ethereal glass dresses, which she casts in the Czech Republic, using the lost wax casting method. Her work employs translucent glass to show the division between our private selves and public personas, shaped by cultural and societal influences. She uses clothing as a metaphor for identity and to explore the human form in absentia. Read more →