Past and Future:
Glass by Boucher & Huebner/Bernstein: May 2007
Glass by Trinh Nguyen: July 2007
Paintings by Michael Kessler: August 2007
Glass by Nancy Callan: August 2007
Glass by Ben Coombs: Sept 2007
Paintings by Reilly Jensen: Oct 2007
Re-View, abstract photography: Jan/Feb 2008

Nov - Dec 2007

Glass at Daniel Kany Gallery

Exhibition: November 3 - December 29, 2007

The Daniel Kany Gallery features glass sculptures by artists from Portland, Maine to the other Portland—from as close as Munjoy Hill to as far away as Japan. For the final exhibition of the gallery's first year, Daniel Kany will present a group show of the gallery's glass artists. Ranging from world famous and world renowned to undiscovered emerging talents, the glass artists of the gallery together present an enormous range of sculptural approaches, techniques and content.

The exhibition, Glass at Daniel Kany Gallery, will showcase the gamut of glass at the gallery. From the tiny sculpted figures of local Nicholas Repenning to the boldly cool minimal sculptures of New York City's Trinh Nguyen, Kany seeks to highlight the diversity of the work. "Some of the glass art is colorful and beautiful, but much of it is extremely subtle and challenging," notes Kany. As a sculptural medium, glass can go in almost any direction and take almost any form. Half of Kany's 20 glass artists are blowers while the other half fuse, slump, hot-sculpt, kiln-cast, torch or cut their glass. "I love blown glass," Kany admits, "and I think the glassblowers are the ones who have really led the International Studio Glass Movement to where it is today. But they also deserve credit for encouraging and supporting so many other approaches. Glass is now an extraordinarily complex medium: it has virtually no limits."

This diversity has had the effect of moving glass far beyond what a typical gallery viewer might expect. Because of that, Kany has found himself dedicating a large amount of his time to education: he has given dozens of lectures; taught classes; juried exhibitions; written catalogs, books and exhibition texts. It is a role he appears to relish.

"Education was always going to play a huge role in how the gallery relates to the community," explains Kany. "It just might be my favorite part of being a gallerist: I am proud of being able to show beautiful work which is often unlike any art ever shown in Portland, Maine; and I love working with the public to help them understand and appreciate what goes into the making of glass art. Maine happens to have an extraordinary history with glass art, but much of it has been secreted up in Deer Isle at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. The Stein Gallery was here for 20 years and there is a more than decent collection on display in the café of the Portland Museum of Art. My gallery glass artists from Maine are particularly strong, especially Ben Coombs and Nick Repenning. Bernie Huebner and Lucy Boucher are from the town in which I grew up—Waterville—and their work is among some of the most innovative glass art I have seen anywhere in the world in the last few years.

Maine may not have been one of the noted locations for glass art over the past few years, but Kany is certain that is changing. He cites the growing reputation of Haystack and exhibitions like the glass show that is opening at the Farnsworth Museum on November 3. "With artists like Ben Coombs and Ernie Paterno working here in Portland, we’re seeing some serious talent blossoming right before our eyes," explains Kany, "but there are glass studios producing great stuff all through the state. Guys like Nick, Ben and Richard Remsen are Mainers, but they have worked with some of the best glass artists in the country. There is not just talent here, but the glass artists are producing sophisticated and compelling sculpture."

Like almost every other major glass art gallery in the country, the Daniel Kany Gallery features a significant group of artists from Seattle. "Even if I hadn’t worked in Seattle for eight years," explains Kany, "I would probably show at least 5 or 6 artists from the Seattle area. It’s the world's center for the International Studio Glass Movement." Kany's northwest glass artists include: Sonja Blomdahl, Nancy Callan, Jeremy Lepisto, Janusz Pozniak, Doug Randall and Randy Walker. "I was fortunate to work at the William Traver Gallery for five years. It happens to be not only the most important Seattle glass gallery, but the art biggest gallery in Seattle. Between my time there and as Director of the Friesen Gallery, I have been lucky enough to have worked with artists like: Lino Tagliapietra, William Morris, Dante Marioni, Dale Chihuly, Dan Dailey, Stephen Weinberg, Livio Seguso, Bertil Vallien, Richard Royal, Martin Blank and many of the other most renowned glass artists in the world. This is not some name-dropping exercise, but I want to point out that I have experience with and expertise in the work of the world’s leading glass artists.

While the Daniel Kany Gallery does feature the work of world famous artists like Stephen Rolfe Powell (KT) and Sonja Blomdahl (Seattle), the gallery has a particular focus on a group who are hitting their strides as major artists, including Alex Gabriel Bernstein (NC), Nancy Callan (Seattle), Trinh Nguyen (NY/Vietnam), Massimiliano Schiavon (Italy), and Randy Walker (WA). Callan has been a leader on Lino Tagliapietra's team for years; Randy Walker worked with the recently-retired William Morris for almost 2 decades; Nguyen has been featured in Glass Magazine and has an important show now at New York's Urban Glass; a major monograph just came out on Schiavon; and Bernstein has had solo exhibitions at four of the world’s top glass galleries in the past year. "You can see the work of some big players here," notes Kany, "but we also show some great artists whose stock is really rising. It's particularly fun because these are the artists who are getting reviewed and published now. It's exciting to be part of that. We also have works by artists who are just now getting to that point. I would have to say Portland’s Ben Coombs is one of the artists to really watch."

Glass at Daniel Kany Gallery will be re-installed for the December art walk. Works by four artists will be added and shown in the gallery for the first time.

On November 10th at 1pm, Kany will moderate a panel of glass artists at the Farnsworth Museum in conjunction with the Farnsworth’s exhibition, A Gathering of Contemporary Glass: Artists from Haystack and Pilchuck which will run from November 3, 2007 to February 17, 2008.

Glass at Daniel Kany Gallery will be on view through December 29th.

For more information and publication-quality images, please contact Daniel Kany.