Chihuly: Baskets - Hardcover

Linda Norden

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576840034 ISBN 13: 9781576840030

Publisher: Portland Press, 1999

Synopsis

Seeing Northwest Indian baskets collapsing under their own weight inspired Chihuly to create his groundbreaking 'Basket' series. He translated the sagging woven fibre works into translucent glass, eternally arresting their surrender to gravity -- stopping time -- and staking out his own aesthetic territory with those asymmetrical forms. In this book art historian Linda Norden, who first wrote about the artist in 1982, searches for a critical context for this work in an 'unabashedly personal effort to reconsider just what Chihuly's rather maverick art entails and to evaluate his paradoxical position vis-a-vis the contemporary art world in which he works'. Northwest historian Murray Morgan writes about the Native American baskets that so fired Chihuly's imagination when he saw them in the storerooms of the Washington State Historical Museum in 1977. Scattered throughout the book are brief statements by the artist revealing his working process. The series development is illustrated with full-page photographs of early installations and of the individual glass works and drawings. Sepia-toned photographs of Indian baskets in Chihuly's personal collection and full-colour working shots add to this comprehensive study of Chihuly's Baskets.

About this title

Review

"Baskets turned out to be one of the best ideas I have ever had. I had seen some beautiful Indian baskets . . . and I was struck by the grace of their slumped, sagging forms. I wanted to capture this grace in glass. The breakthrough for me was recognizing that heat was the tool to be used with gravity to make these forms."

Synopsis

Seeing Northwest Indian baskets collapsing under their own weight inspired Chihuly to create his groundbreaking 'Basket' series. He translated the sagging woven fibre works into translucent glass, eternally arresting their surrender to gravity -- stopping time -- and staking out his own aesthetic territory with those asymmetrical forms. In this book art historian Linda Norden, who first wrote about the artist in 1982, searches for a critical context for this work in an 'unabashedly personal effort to reconsider just what Chihuly's rather maverick art entails and to evaluate his paradoxical position vis-a-vis the contemporary art world in which he works'. Northwest historian Murray Morgan writes about the Native American baskets that so fired Chihuly's imagination when he saw them in the storerooms of the Washington State Historical Museum in 1977. Scattered throughout the book are brief statements by the artist revealing his working process. The series development is illustrated with full-page photographs of early installations and of the individual glass works and drawings.

Sepia-toned photographs of Indian baskets in Chihuly's personal collection and full-colour working shots add to this comprehensive study of Chihuly's Baskets.

Edition details

• Publisher: Portland Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1576840034
• ISBN 13: 9781576840030
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 148