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Art Art & Books

Dale Chihuly’s glass is half empty

CHIHULY at the Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queen’s Park), to January 1, 2017. $29, stu/srs $26.50. 416-586-8000. See listing. Rating: NN


It sparkles, it shimmers: glass is a beautiful material. But in the same way that it might be easier to make an interesting photograph of garbage than of flowers, it’s hard to make meaningful work from something so distractingly pretty. Not impossible, though – for instance, Tim Whiten, as part of his sculptural practice, lends a poignant fragility to sturdy household tools like brooms and rolling pins by casting them in glass. 

I’ve often found the separation of crafts and art artificial and prejudicial against those who’ve devoted years to mastering demanding techniques. Exhibits at the Textile and Gardiner Museums have built lots of bridges. But this show by Seattle-based glass powerhouse Dale Chihuly makes me realize that I expect more than skill and flamboyance from those who want to cross that divide.

Chihuly, who directs a team of artisans (accidents have left him unable to blow glass himself), combines multiple glass elements that often mimic plant or aquatic forms into installations mounted in museums, botanical gardens, public squares and Vegas hotels. Success has allowed him to work on a huge scale unavailable to other glass artists. (However, small vases and dishes by the Chihuly studio sell for $8,000 in the gift shop.) 

Some of the stuff here is undeniably fun: a boat holds giant multicoloured marbles ranging from softball-sized to the size of Pilates balls a splashy garden blooms with sinuous, surreal trees and shrubs chandelier-like starbursts hang from the ceiling. 

In one room you can lie on the floor and gaze up at the coloured light streaming through assorted blown-glass bits and bobs piled into a clear glass drop-ceiling. Maybe I should try this with my glass collection (curatorial guidelines: found objects, gifts and thrift-shop buys under $10 only) instead of cluttering up my window sills. 

I agree with the sophisticated child who during my visit proclaimed Sapphire Neon Tumbleweeds, three tangles of bent neon tubes, his favourite. Its luminous blue scribbles have a restful subtlety. But a series of cylinders with protruding chunks and works involving tall red rods stuck into birch logs are decidedly clunky. 

The last room, called Influences, sours me on the whole confection. Chihuly’s Baskets, slightly distorted earth-toned glass vessels, share space with some magnificent Northwest Coast tribal baskets (no makers or First Nations are identified) from the artist’s collection, their humble natural materials and combination of utility and weaving virtuosity putting his flashy oeuvre to shame. 

One wall displays his vintage Pendleton blankets (made by a white-owned Oregon company for the Aboriginal market) and another has 20 sepia photogravure portraits by Edward S. Curtis (much criticized for his anachronistic representation of Aboriginal people and colonial mindset). It’s the kind of de-contextualized use of First Nations people and culture I’d hoped not to see any more in Canadian museums.

Though some people seem to be getting a lot of pleasure from Chihuly’s eye candy, it’s mostly empty calories.

art@nowtoronto.com | @franschechter

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