Tag: Metropolitan Opera

A master in the craft of glasswork, beginning in 2004 he took upon himself the four-year task of reinterpreting the Met’s so-called “sputniks” for his work “Island Universe.” The five sculptures he made, along with related works on paper and a 20-minute film, are on view at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center through Aug. 18. Following repair in 2016 of the machinery that raises and lowers the Metropolitan Opera’s crystal chandeliers, the Met produced this video to announce that the light fixtures “once again rise elegantly to the ceiling to signal the beginning of each performance.” The chandeliers partly inspired Josiah McElheny’s “Island Universe.” This video by the Metropolitan Opera, used by permission, is not the artist’s film shown in the exhibition. McElheny was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2006. He is surely the only glass artist to achieve that distinction, and it was based primarily upon the conceptual rigor of his work, not his exquisite craftsmanship. Or, as in the case of “Island Universe,” teases out the significance that lies behind the ornamental surface of utilitarian objects. Hans Harald Rath, designer for the Austrian glassware company Lobmeyr, worked closely with architect Wallace K. Harrison, who so wanted to invoke space and the stars that he sent to Rath a book by a prominent astrophysicist, marking specific pages. It was 1963, just as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe was entering popular consciousness. McElheny’s installation at the Cantor is evidence of an ever deeper investigation, referencing ideas of our universe as just one “island” among many. “The center is everywhere,” Blanqui wrote, which suggests a democracy of the physical world. “Josiah McElheny: Island Universe”: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday-Monday; until 8 p.m. Thursdays.