Wystawy

Thursday, 12th March 2009, 7 pm

A vernissage of an Exhibition of Glass Art and Glass Sculpture from the collection of The Książ Castle Wałbrzych BWA Art Gallery. The exhibition will feature over 120 exhibits of the most prominent post-war Polish glass art artists – Professor Henryk Albin Tomaszewski, Ludwik Kiczura, Zbyszek Chorbowy, Jana Michulowa, Tasios Kyriazopoulos and some others.

Glass is the only material that thanks to its exceptional features is considered to be on par with such noble materials like stone or wood. This is why it’s always been related to the human’s environment, not only in utilitarian terms, but also as an object of an artistic activity.

Among many creative activities, glass art fringes upon craft and industrial production, thus requiring not only artistic ingenuity, but also a lot of understanding and involvement of technology.

Drawing from many centuries’ tradition of glass industry in the Sudety region, well-skilled glassworkers working at glass works in our region and a high quality glass, the only Poland’s art workshops have been organised for many years now. Creative activities are undertaken under auspices of the Minister of Culture and Arts and the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts. The Książ Castle Wałbrzych BWA Art Gallery is the master organizer. The artists have developed their projects in the Barbara Art Glass Works in Polanica Zdrój and the Violetta Crystal Glass Works in Stronie Śląskie.

Works of art created at 18 workshops have allowed to build up a collection of over 700 exhibits shown in front of the Wałbrzych Art Gallery, and the mere extent of this collection makes it exceptional in the whole country’s scale.

Glass workshops were organised under the artistic auspices of Prof. Zbigniew Horbowy, Prof. Ludwik Kiczura and subsequently Prof. Henryk Wilkowski. They were attended by both renowned artists with substantial achievements and young representatives of this branch of art.

In this context, artistic effects of open air creative get-togethers are contributed to by experience, artistic maturity, experimental passion intertwined with courage and the risk of innovative activity. Workshops were participated by outstanding Polish artists of the elder generation and representatives of the young resilient generation that’s eager to find new solutions in terms of form and technology. It should be mentioned that a group of distinguished Polish artists were complemented by international quests from Hungary, Bulgaria, the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Greece and Ukraine, thus making an opportunity for interesting confrontations and setting our Polish achievements against a broader background.

The collection built up as a result of workshops illustrates artistic achievements involving soda and crystal glass in a complete and representative way, and molten glass of this type allowed for the use of a broader chromatic range, which lends the exhibition spectacularity and considerable visual beauty. The collection has a demonstrative nature, it can be treated as the disclosure of creative potential of Polish glass designers, and generally, as an expression of the contemporary condition of this branch of art.

The size and diversity of works that make up the glass art collection that’s been built up over 18 years allows for seeing the phenomenon in a variety of stylistic and technical forms as well as tracking trends and directions of this branch of art. Apart from traditional receptacles in the vein of so called Wrocław school (harmoniously composed, of classical design, spectacular colours and moderate ornamentation), sometimes purposely deformed and standing in contravention of their utilitarian function, there are non-utilitarian forms – decorative, sculpturally oriented that appear to dominate this collection, which reflects that general trend in modern glass art. However, both receptacles and glass sculptures are truly unique works – their originality that results from the use of so called free-hand shaping technique is another asset of the collection and adds to its artistic value. Aesthetic value of the exhibits, documentary and demonstrative values, natural beauty of glass shown in a well thought over artistic form are undeniable assets of the Exhibition, yet there are not the only ones. Another important aspect is the presentation of skills of glass workers who work in our glass works. It is worth underscoring the issue of historical rationale for and local traditions of glass works in the Lower Silesia region.

Providing artists with an artistic opportunity that takes advantage of trade skills of glass workers, producers of these works, is a task for the organizers of the future editions of Artistic Workshops to hopefully come.

The exhibition presents most of ornamental techniques in use in art glass, ranging from free-hand blown forms, single-layer and multi-layer glass to pâte de verre glass. Soda glass, lead glass optical glass, and also glass in combination with ceramics, metal and stone is used. On display are works of a number of generations of glass art creators, ranging from the masters of the oldest generation to the recent graduates from the Faculty of Glass and Ceramics of the Wroclaw Academy of Fine Art.

We highly recommend visiting the exhibition which presents a small portion of the collection of the Wałbrzych Art Gallery and hope that the glass works of art will linger in your memory.

Alicja Młodecka, Manager of the Książ Castle Wałbrzych BWA Art Gallery

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