Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Art For Art's Sake: Chihuly

Way back, in 2005, I took a trip to Kew with a friend to see the Chihuly glass exhibition. She's a real glass sculpture enthusiast, and I never need an excuse to go to Kew, one of my favourite spots in London.

So I was planning to nod approvingly at the art and feast my eyes on the plants. Not being into glass that much, I'd never even heard of this chap.

But to my surprise, the sculptures were a revelation! Organic and compelling, they matched up beautifully with the setting. I even sat down and watched the 'making of...' video that was running in a loop in a little auditorium set up in the Princess of Wales Conservatory - twice!



Sadly, although I took lots of photographs, I can't seem to find any more of them on my PC than this one, which I must have copied out of its folder and sent to someone a few years later.

But the book is available for sale, and the Kew Website maintains an archive of the exhibition. And if it's ever repeated, I shall make sure I go again.
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5 comments:

  1. Demetrius21 August 2013 at 14:13

    A little time back Sky Arts ran some programmes on this.

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  2. MTG21 August 2013 at 15:40

    I would certainly travel down to see a repeat showing. The plants would be best ranked as prime viewing and should the sculptures surpass expectations, there's a bonus.

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  3. Pavlov's Cat21 August 2013 at 21:44

    Ouch , that's not good.

    Made me go and check mine , still there thank goodness

    But 2005 , that long ago , well those 8 years just whizzed by

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  4. JuliaM24 August 2013 at 08:22

    "A little time back Sky Arts ran some programmes on this."

    Oooh, will have to look out for a rerun.

    "Ouch , that's not good. "

    No, I'm usually so organised too.. :( The only thing I can think is that I lost them when I had a hard drive malfunction a few years back...

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  5. AMB1 September 2013 at 03:56

    I'm very lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest region of the US. Dale Chihuly is a local here and has an incredible glass art museum just a little ways down the coast from me. About a year ago, they opened a whole garden of his work at Seattle Center. It's incredible. The way he evokes the sense of organic matter from his glass is incredible.

    At my alma mater, I used to sit beneath the huge Chihuly chandelier in the art building and just stare up at it.

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