Chihuly: Los Angeles

In conjunction with:

L.A. Louver: November 19, 2004 - January 15, 2005
www.lalouver.com

Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University:
November 21, 2004 - March 20, 2005
www.pepperdine.edu/arts

Chihuly: Los Angeles at Frank Lloyd Gallery will present a focused selection of individual works for which Chihuly has earned his renown. These unique small-scale works are from various series known as Baskets, Persians, Cylinders and Seaforms. Selected to present an exhibition that shows the breadth of the artist's work - from subtle, elegant and refined to passionate and sensual - each piece will be perfectly integrated into the architecture of the gallery. Visitors will enter a darkened space, where they will be presented with a work from the Persians series. Soft Cylinders and Jerusalem Cylinders, some of the most sensuous and striking forms in the Chihuly repertoire, will be shown in the gallery display cases.

Individual Seaforms will fill the gallery's center area, presenting a subtle symphony of flowing white, gray and black lines. Works in this installation of Seaforms represent over twenty years of the artist's celebration of the ocean, which Chihuly first grew to love as a child growing up near Seattle, and where he later sailed as a fisherman. Chihuly also came to know the New England shore during his time at the Rhode Island School of Design in the late 1960s. Chihuly's studio is in Seattle in a building known as The Boathouse, where he and a team of artists have created the sculptures for both exhibitions.

The Frank Lloyd Gallery show culminates with the presentation of several rich red Persians in the main gallery. According to Henry Geldzahler, these forms "manifest glass' real character as a frozen liquid…and allude to romance, mystery, an ancient world, and its survival in the present." The Persians series, begun in 1986, were inspired by the process of glass blowing and many technical experiments involving pulling the molten glass, and using optical molds and body wraps in dazzling, rich colors.