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KATONAH MUSEUM TO OPEN ‘SHATTERING GLASS’ NOV. 11 w/1 cut

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KATONAH, N.Y. — “Shattering Glass: New Perspectives,” opening on November 11, at the Katonah Museum of Art, will present contemporary glass by 22 artists, each of whom has chosen glass as their medium. The exhibit will be on view to February 24.

The exhibition is intended to shatter visitor’s expectations of glass: what it is, what it looks like, how it functions and its perceived limitations of scale, texture and malleability. Viewers will encounter works from a wide range of aesthetic sensibilities. In presenting “Shattering Glass” the museum is inviting visitors of all ages to explore contemporary art from the perspective of a single medium. “Grasping what inspires artists can be challenging at times” says Ellen Keiter, co-curator of the exhibition and association curator of exhibitions at the Katonah Museum.

“By focusing on a material with which we all have an immediate, everyday familiarity, this exhibition facilitates a comfortable entree into the world of contemporary art. Simultaneously it transports viewers to marvelous fantasy realms of pure color, dazzling reflection, inexplicable arrangements, seductive surfaces and amazing proportions that envelop the senses and engage the mind,” she said.

The diversity of expressions and techniques employed by the artists in “Shattering Glass” poses a challenge to the traditional perceptions of glass as a craft medium. “Over the past 40 years, glass has been catapulted from the decorative arts shelf to the front lines of art making — sharing the spotlight with established discipline such as painting, sculpture and photography,” says Neil Watson, co-curator of “Shattering Glass” and Katonah Museum executive director. “For this exhibition, our core curatorial charge was to present artwork that would alter people’s perceptions about the material of glass and its artistic potential. With that idea firmly in hand, we cast our net wide and were rewarded with an abundance of startling, innovative work from which to choose,” he said.

Many of the artists in “Shattering Glass” work exclusively in the medium while others explore it for the first time. Each artist has approached the ancient material from a novel vantage point, employing techniques of stained, cast, cut, sandblasted, etched, slumped and blown glass as well as found, crystal, neon, mosaic and mirrored glass.

Several of the works are site-specific, created to respond to, and interact with, the museum’s architecture. They include Arlene Shechet’s “Out of the Blue,” an installation of cast crystal rope on two opposing walls in the museum’s atrium, and Bill FitzGibbons’s “Katonah Lights,” an installation of colored light in the museum’s two west windows.

Much of the work is inspired by the natural world, including William Morris’s “Trophies,” a series of blown-glass skulls representing horned mammals such as elk and antelope, and Mark Zirpel’s image of a giant magnolia leaf sandblasted on a beveled sheet of plate glass. The human body inspired Karen LaMonte’s monumental cast glass dresses, as well as Angelo Filomeno’s “Cold,” a life-sized human skeleton blown and constructed in opaque black glass.

The museum is on Route 22 at Jay Street. For information, www.katonahmuseum.org or 914-232-9555.