PEACH WEEKENDER | ARTS
Toledo Museum of Art installs glass work
Piece istands 8 feet high, spans 15 feet in length
2/2/2017
‘Orbit,’ a 1987 work by noted glass artist by Dan Dailey, was recently installed outside the Little Theater at the Toledo Museum of Art. It previously hung in the Rainbow Room nightclub in Rockefeller Center.
The Toledo Museum of Art recently finished the installation of a glass work by Dan Dailey, an artist who was a major player in the studio glass movement and who is known for working with the manipulation of light in his pieces.
Orbit (1987), which previously hung behind the bandstand in the Rainbow Room nightclub in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, was gifted to the Toledo museum by the real estate firm Tishman Speyer in 2015, after the Rainbow Room owners had it dismantled during a renovation. It was installed here in the hallway outside the museum’s Little Theater.
The size of the piece is hard to ignore, as it stands 8 feet high and spans 15 feet in length. But experts are recommending that beyond the shifting light behind the glass that moves from ambers to violets to blues, viewers need to get up close and personal with the work to truly appreciate the level of detail in Orbit.
Dailey told TMA that he is driven by imagery more so than technique, and that visitors will see forms in the piece that reference ancient mythology, and figures that allude to space and science fiction.
Dailey was the first graduate student of glass artist Dale Chihuly, whose work is also shown at TMA, and started the glass department at the Massachusetts College of Arts.
Dailey’s work is seen around the world, and was shown in Toledo during the show Color Ignited: Glass 1962-2012. For more information, go to toledomuseum.org.
■ The University of Michigan Museum of Art has organized an exhibition that highlights the collections of university alumni, and will be showcased in two parts this year.
The first presentation, Figuration, opens Feb. 18 and runs through June 11. The second, Abstraction, can be viewed from July 1 to Oct. 29.
The shows include 115 pieces that span 3,500 years of art from around the world, from the collections of more than 70 years of university graduates.
Victors for Art: Michigan’s Alumni Collectors was organized by Joseph Rosa, a former UMMA director and guest curator of the show, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the university’s founding. He was assisted by several curators.
The first show, Figuration, is focused on works that represent people, objects, and surroundings, while other works in the show push against that same notion of representation. Some of the artists include prominent French post-impressionist Henri Matisse, American artist and fashion photographer Collier Schorr, digital media artist Peter Campus and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, a neoclassic French painter from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The second leg of the show, Abstraction, focuses on line, form, shape and color, and features work from Brooklyn painter Jose Parla, cubist Pablo Picasso, Korean sculptor Do Ho Suh and abstract sculptor Louise Neverlson.
A catalog of the work will be available at the museum in September.
The UMMA is at 525 S. State St., in Ann Arbor. Its galleries are open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The museum is closed on Mondays. For more information, call 734.764.0395 or go to umma.umich.edu.
■ The American Frame showroom in Maumee has two gallery shows that opened with the month of February.
The Toledo Artists Club 2016 Award Winners exhibit will open with a reception from 4 to 5 p.m. Friday. The show will consist of works that won either Best of Show or People’s Choice awards at Toledo Artists Club shows last year.
A second show of local artist Emily Wilson’s work has also opened at the showroom, and will include an artist talk and reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 10. Wilson creates 2-D and 3-D paper cuttings with a knife.
Both shows run through Feb. 28. American Frame gallery, 400 Tomahawk Drive, is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Thursdays.
For more information, go to americanframe.com.
■ Don’t forget that Handmade Toledo on Adams Street in downtown Toledo, is more than a great place to buy local art. The store also offers frequent hands-on workshops for the public.
In February and March, they have several, including an intro to watercolor painting and coldpress soapmaking.
For more information, go to handmadetoledo.com/classes-workshops or call 419-214-1717.
Send news of art items at least two weeks in advance to rgedert@theblade.com or call 419-724-6075.
Contact Roberta Gedert at: rgedert@theblade.com or 419-724-6075 or on Twitter @RoGedert.