{"id":368,"date":"2009-05-27T23:48:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T04:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/?p=368"},"modified":"2014-12-14T21:46:28","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T02:46:28","slug":"biomorphic-glass-chihuly-in-the-bronx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/27\/biomorphic-glass-chihuly-in-the-bronx\/","title":{"rendered":"Biomorphic Glass: Chihuly in the Bronx"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Dale Chihuly<\/a> is one of those artists who’s a little too popular to be cool, the Tiffany of our time.\u00a0 But his work is stunning in its scale and originality, and it particularly shines when it’s exhibited in a biological context, as it was in the summer of 2006 at the New York Botanical Garden<\/a> in the Bronx, where I took these photos on film with my lovely Konica Hexar<\/a> camera.\u00a0 The red spikes of glass shown above are planted around the\u00a0 magnificent Victorian glasshouse known as the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory<\/a>.\u00a0 Inside the dome, a tower of blue and yellow curlicues becomes even more vertically imposing by rising from a reflecting pool:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

These giant constructions are made by wiring hundreds of twisty pieces of blown glass onto a hidden steel frame.\u00a0 Observe how these forms harmonize with the botanical forms around them.\u00a0 Chihuly’s methods of glass blowing work with the natural dynamic of taffylike molten silica infused with human breath.\u00a0 The process is organic rather than mechanical, and so the resulting forms are full of life.<\/p>\n

Here is a curlier variant of the planted rods shown at the top of this post, with forms reminiscent of orchids or cobras:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

A lotus pond is a perfect place for this explosion of violet tumescence:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Or for these crystal flamingo flowers:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Or this buoyant glass onion:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

The actual biological forms start to look strangely Chihulian, as though they’re infused with breath like blown glass:<\/p>\n

\"Lotus

Lotus Pond, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Breath is synonymous with spirit, or lifeforce, in many ancient languages:\u00a0 spiritus, pneuma, ruach, ruh, atman.\u00a0 I went to the Botanical Garden to photograph the Chihuly pieces, but found the botanical forms compelling in exactly the same way:<\/p>\n

\"Veined

Veined leaves, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Tropical

Tropical Plants, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Red

Red White Green, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Tropical

Tropical Berries, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Back to the Chihuly works, here’s another tower of glass, this time with a more mineral character:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

This sphere of writhing yellowness I think is entitled “The Sun”:<\/p>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Glass

Glass installation by Dale Chihuly, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

This is alchemy:\u00a0 from the most commonplace starting material – glass is made from sand – Chihuly produces forms that embody beauty and power.<\/p>\n

And to conclude, back to the biological manifestations, first the startling red of fallen crabapples:<\/p>\n

\"Crabapples,

Crabapples, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

And finally the green of algae growing in a puddle atop a boulder, a beautiful demonstration of the determination of life to burst forth anywhere and everywhere possible:<\/p>\n

\"Algae,

Algae, photo by Fred Hatt, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Dale Chihuly’s website<\/a> contains an extensive archive of material about and writings by the artist, such as this interesting piece<\/a> tying the techniques of weaving and glassmaking.<\/p>\n

All of the photos in this post were taken on the same day in 2006, at the New York Botanical Garden<\/a> in the Bronx, New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dale Chihuly is one of those artists who’s a little too popular to be cool, the Tiffany of our time.\u00a0 But his work is stunning in its scale and originality, and it particularly shines when it’s exhibited in a biological context, as it was in the summer of 2006 at the New York Botanical Garden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[144,222],"tags":[60,95,61,62],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-art","category-sculpture-2","tag-dale-chihuly","tag-exhibits","tag-nature","tag-sculpture"],"yoast_head":"\nBiomorphic Glass: Chihuly in the Bronx - 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