Dale Chihuly Works Featured in Eight-Month Exhibition at Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Opening May 9, 2010

Site-specific Installation Includes Works from Venetian, Ikebana, Persian, Macchia, Seaforms, Mille Fiori Series

NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- There are few contemporary artists whose name is as synonymous with the medium in which he works as Dale Chihuly, who is widely regarded as the most innovative glass artist working today.  Active since the 1960s, Chihuly is credited with almost single-handedly elevating the postwar American studio glass movement to the international prominence it now enjoys.

During an eight-month exhibition in the Frist Center for the Visual Arts' Upper-Level Galleries, the unsurpassed mastery of the artist and his Seattle glass-studio collaborators will be on view in nine installations drawn from some of Chihuly's most acclaimed series.  Chihuly at the Frist will open to the public Sunday, May 9, 2010, and remain on view through Jan. 2, 2011.

For this exhibition at the Frist Center, Chihuly and his artisan assistants are presenting new works and works drawn from his most important series of the past three decades in an installation designed specifically for the Frist Center's galleries.  Among the featured series are Venetians, a brilliantly colored and intricately formed group of works that was inspired in 1988 by a famed Italian glass master; Ikebana, which was informed by the Japanese art of flower arranging; Persians, conjuring the exotic and enchanted lands of the Far East; Macchia, borne of Chihuly's desire to use hundreds of colors in rippling forms based on vases created in the famed Venini glass factory in Venice; and Seaforms, which celebrates the waving and rippling shapes and rhythms of underwater life.  In addition, the exhibition will include a spectacular Mille Fiori (a thousand flowers) garden and the Sea Blue and Green Tower, a mammoth sculpture that masses colorful, curving forms in a large-scale work that rises nearly ten feet tall and occupies an entire gallery.

Also on exhibition will be a wall of Chihuly's drawings that serve as independent works of art and "blueprints" to communicate and inspire his glassblowers to bring his designs to life and to improvise on the themes he has created.

The acclaimed documentary Chihuly in the Hotshop will be on continuous view in the Upper-Level Galleries throughout the exhibition.  Directed by Peter West, the film follows the artist in 2006, as he worked in the Museum of Glass's hotshop in Tacoma, Wash., an amphitheatre designed specifically to allow the public to view artists at work. The film received its premiere at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Frist Center, Cheekwood and Nashville Symphony Collaborate

In addition to the Frist Center, Dale Chihuly's work also will be seen at the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art and at performances of the Nashville Symphony.  In an unprecedented collaboration, the three institutions are joining forces to cross-promote and offer reciprocal discounts to their members and subscribers.

For more information, please visit www.chihulyinnashville.com.  

Dale Chihuly

Dale Chihuly was born in Tacoma, Wash., and first blew glass in 1965.  His calling was confirmed in 1968, when he traveled to the island of Murano in Venice and absorbed the secrets of traditional glassblowing.  As a professor (1969–1980) at the Rhode Island School of Design, and as a co-founder of the Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Wash., Chihuly helped introduce the European studio (team) model of glassblowing to the studio glass movement in the United States. He served as artistic director at Pilchuck until 1989; under his guidance, it became a gathering place for artists from all over the world.

While Chihuly has been a significant innovator of form and color, his greatest contribution to the discipline has been to emphasize the roles the natural forces of heat, gravity and centrifugal force play in the creation of glass.

In his art, Dale Chihuly walks a fine line between conscious intention and chance occurrence.

While much of his work is inspired by the natural world, Chihuly seeks to emulate the process of nature, rather than nature, itself.  

For more than four decades, Chihuly's art has explored line, color, form and technique with works ranging from site-specific, indoor and outdoor installations, such as those at the Frist Center and Cheekwood, to single, table-top vessels.  The vision, ambition and scale of his pioneering works revolutionized the studio glass movement and helped demolish barriers that had previously prevented glass objects from being viewed as a serious art form.  

Exhibition Sponsors

The Presenting Sponsor of Chihuly at the Frist is the HCA Foundation on behalf of HCA and the TriStar Family of Hospitals. The Supporting Sponsor of the exhibition is SunTrust.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Exhibition Credits

This exhibition is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in cooperation with Dale Chihuly.  The work displayed is protected by copyright and any copying is expressly prohibited.

Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., is an art exhibition center dedicated to presenting the finest visual art from local, regional, U.S. and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions. The Frist Center's Martin ArtQuest Gallery features more than 30 interactive stations relating to Frist Center exhibitions. Gallery admission to the Frist Center is free for visitors 18 and younger and to Frist Center members. Frist Center admission is $10.00 for adults and $7.00 for seniors, military and college students with ID. College students are admitted free Thursday and Friday evenings, 5–9 p.m. Discounts are offered for groups of 10 or more with advance reservation by calling (615) 744-3246. The Frist Center is open seven days a week: Mondays through Wednesdays, and Saturdays, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m.–9 p.m. and Sundays, 1–5:30 p.m., with the Frist Center Cafe opening at noon. Additional information is available by calling (615) 244-3340 or by visiting our Web site at www.fristcenter.org.

SOURCE Frist Center for the Visual Arts