Discover the new exhibition from the 7.6.12
Glass is a unique and irreplaceable material in the world of contemporary artistic creation.
Man discovered how to make glass more than 5,000 years ago, a process characterized by transformation from a liquid state at high temperature to a solid state at ambient temperature. Glass can therefore be moulded and sculpted, hot or cold, from inside or outside, in all the imaginable three-dimensional forms, and be a partner to all the possible mixes with the colors of the prism. It even has the power of suggesting the fourth dimension to us.
Glass is a material that is perfectly appropriate for sculpture, able to combine with other three-dimensional materials in a temporary or permanent fashion. It is therefore the ideal element with which to explore and create Mixed Media artwork – the Russian Constructivists early in the 20th century understood its potential very well.
It is in solidifying after the fusion state that glass opens up a royal road to artistic fantasy, allowing artists the possibility of integrating all kinds of chosen objects and materials belonging to our world into the body of a piece, producing sculpture that is complex and astonishing from both the technical and the aesthetic standpoint. Then, there are some sculptors who prefer to work with glass in its cold state, daring combinations of disarming simplicity that are, in fact, often very delicate tasks.
Thus, today’s Mixed Media glass art can introduce into its sculptural mass elements as diverse and different as granite, wood, vegetation, gold, silver, bronze, and any other natural or man-made element capable of inspiring or stimulating the artist’s creativity. Total mastery of the techniques, processes and tools required for creative glass sculpting allows the artists, fired with the passion for discovery, to explore the new perspectives that Mixed Media brings to the fertile palette of artistic expression.
These three-dimensional works surprise us with their ability to unite the impossible with the improbable, the unexpected and the unhoped-for.
The Verriales 2012 Mixed Media exhibition assembling the works of thirty international artists is both unique and universal. For this year’s show the artists have set off on paths of the greatest artistic freedom – like visionary explorers in the world of imagination, emotion and sensations.
Mixed Media was also the theme set in the 1999 Verriales. We found it particularly interesting to involve the artists in such a remake, letting us get a feel of their evolution and artistic progress.
These 2012-vintage Mixed Media works conceal in their depths not only the sublime secret of their humanity, that eternal dimension of art, but also contain personal bits of their lives and show their relationship to art.
We extend to them our infinite gratitude.
Serge Lechaczynski Jean Eskénazi
