Karen LaMonte - Reviews, Articles, Publications - Glass Magazine - Contemporary Art from UrbanGlass

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Celebrating the Flesh: Its Fullness, Its Frailties, Its Forbidden Secrets.
New York Times. December 5, 2003.
By Grace Glueck.

Whatever else can be said about "Corporal Identity - Body Language" at the Museum of Arts and Design, it can't be viewed as scanting its subject. Skin, hair, orifices, veins, organs, face, feet, sex, birth, disease, plastic surgery, mind-body connections, human cloning and so on come under the relentless scrutiny of the 200-odd participating artists in this no-holds-barred anthology of attitudes toward the body and its relationship with the self.

Gabriel Urbanek/Heller Gallery
Karen LaMonte's "Dress No. 8," of translucent cast glass, in the show "Corporal Identity - Body Language."

Ugly? Beautiful? Gross? Graceful? Gruesome? Erotic? Outrageous? Off the wall? You'll find them all in this enormous exhibition, a collaboration between the Museum of Arts and Design and two German institutions, the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt and the Klingspor Museum for Book Art in Offenbach. The show includes many young artists, German and American, along with more familiar names like Carolee Schneemann, Lesley Dill, Wendell Castle and Barton Lidice Benes.

The idea of artists responding to corporeal matters, particularly their own, is of course not new, going back at least to the Egyptians and hitting it big with Leonardo. In more recent times, as Ursula Ilse-Neuman, a Museum of Arts and Design curator, notes in the show's catalog, creators as diverse as Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock and Yves Klein have been involved in matters of gender identity, gestural painting and actual use of the body as a living paintbrush.

But given today's view of the body as a repairable, near-replaceable, longer-than-life object, an endless subject for tinkering inside and out, artists and artisans are exploring all kinds of modalities for expressing new attitudes toward it. Those old craft standbys like ceramics, wood, glass, metal, fiber and fabric play important roles, but so do advanced new techniques and mediums, some derived from medical and computer technology.

Jewelry, a significant part of the show, often mimics body parts, as in Peter Bauhuis's brooches of cast silver that depict the heart as a muscle, with tracings on the backs that suggest its arterial pattern. Ceramics, like Nadja Recknagel's quirky "Body/Creatures" of polymer clay with roughened outer skin, suggest body parts. Electronics, like the video alarm clock devised by Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, inset with a tape depicting close-ups of body movements, evoke mind-body reciprocity. Body pain, body pleasure, the body as laboratory, even - mirabile dictu - the body as a home for the soul enter into the artists' concerns.

Flesh is one preoccupation, as evident in Susanna Starr's "Phantom Skin," a long, vertical structure of spongy, repetitive ridges (made by pouring acrylic paint in tones ranging from roseate to ashen gray onto synthetic sponges) that suggests the creases and folds of an aging body. A beautifully draped and flowing life-size gown of translucent cast glass, by Karen LaMonte, suggests the "two skins" that define the human body, the natural and the cultural one of clothing.

Katinka Kaskeline, a jewelry maker, has a more cynical view. Her "Stigmata Set" of color-print tattoos simulating gunshot wounds can be applied directly to the skin; when peeled off, they leave blue marks like bruises and the semblances of star-shaped holes.

A witty metaphor for skin is James Croak's "Interpersonal Relationship Suit," a full-body garment studded all over with stones. As its title implies, it spares the wearer from too-close contact with others.

Quite naturally, body impact and body shapes are big issues here. One of the most striking works, literally, is Alan Wexler's "Wall (I Want to Become Architecture)," a self-portrait in which the artist (in this case an architect) leaves his imprint on a wall, pressing his body into it to form a concave impression on one side and a convex bulge on the other. The idea is to marry the organic shape of the body to the geometrics of the built environment, and a colliding marriage it turns out to be.

Right on the theme of bodily impact is Ms. Dill's big photograph "He Felt," in which a man's ample profile receives a rather gentle punch in the mouth from a female fist. Embellished with oil, thread, wax and words, the black-and-white photograph registers the cozy-cum-violent intimacy that can occur between close individuals, "somewhere between a punch and a kiss," Ms. Dill says.

The outer body is expressed in numerous works, among them Richard DeVore's pinkish ceramic vessel, "Untitled No. 980." Its bowl form hints gently but sensually at female anatomy, with a crotchlike indentation so suave that the bowl could be placed on a formal table. In violent contrast is Heinz Breloh's "Ones Singled Out No. 3," a small terra cotta in which a seated figure, bearing the mark of the artist's frenzied hands, is subjected to violent, Expressionist distortion and daubed with manic colors.
Wood is the medium for Ernst Gamperl's "Vessel," a smoothly finished pelvic shape with a navel-like knot in its middle. In "Body to Soul," Norma Minkowitz creates a series of female bodylike structures of crochet, beginning with a full form that gradually unravels into a ball, losing its figural shape as it evolves to the ethereality of the soul.

Partial representations of bodily forms include Marion Gabriel's life-size "Pair of Feet," made of cast chocolate but tinted pinkish white. "Changing Hand," a metal teapot in the shape of a big, squared-off hand is the work of Tom Muir. And Marek Cecula's "Interface Set IV (Ears)" is a set of five lifelike ears of vitreous china, lined up in a row so that their interiors form a long tunnel through which the viewer can peer. It is meant to be emblematic of human coexistence.

Body surrogates are suggested by certain works, like Christine LoFaso's "Corner Chair," a sedate, traditional furniture piece whose seat, with a suggestive hole in the middle, is upholstered in a saucy Jacquard fabric imprinted with lips, nails and genitalia. "A Night's Breath" by Jeffrey Mongrain is a clay pillow that seems to float, modeled after the marble pillow placed under effigies of knights and royalty in ancient crypts. A depression in its middle holds eight and a half ounces of water, the average amount of moisture breathed out by a woman during an eight-hour sleep, Mr. Mongrain says.

The show does not neglect the body's inner workings, either. "Organ Sack," a jolly hanging by Birgit Dieker of artificial leather, neatly integrates stuffed versions of the body's insides, each organ a different color (red heart, blue lungs, tan guts); it is proposed as a repository for replacement parts. And Jon Eric Riis's "Heart of Gold No. 3, male," part of a series of tapestries exploring the relationship of outside and inside, takes the form of a jacket whose exterior resembles flayed skin; when opened, it exposes a colorful replication of internal organs woven in silk thread.

Nor are works inspired by medicine and its techniques in short supply. They tend to be on the sardonic side, like Mr. Benes's "Petits Fours," a cake plate full of "confections" made from brightly colored pills for treating AIDS. Cindy Kolodziejski transforms lab equipment into biomorphic forms like her "Semen Sampler," a genitally shaped ceramic beaker attached to a metal rod. And then there is Bruce Metcalf's small wood-and-brass "Man in Bloom," a small but very graphic male figure on a surgical table, his belly laid open to expose his insides pulled in every direction by clamps.

Phew! And the above is just a sampling from a show whose inclusiveness is magnanimous, but whose content could use some editing. Take a stout pair of shoes, and leave the children at home.

"Corporal Identity - Body Language" is at the Museum of Arts and Design, 40 West 53rd Street, Manhattan, (212) 956-3535, through June 4.

The Lady Vanishes.
Artonview. Magazine of the National Gallery of Australia. Summer 2002-03. No. 32.
By Robert Bell.

Click to see Czech translation of this article.

Dress 4
Life Size
62" x 25" x 25"
2001, cast glass

With its focused core embodying a rich spectrum of meaning and interpretation, the work of Karen LaMonte is both an acknowledgement of cultural tradition and a forum of exploration into issues pertinent to contemporary society. Her monumental glass sculptures and monotypes are inspired by an engaged interest in the cyclic theatre of the human body, more precisely the persistent presence it infuses into the clothes it inhabits, shares a common destiny with and then abandons. In this sense, the humblest garment is a gateway to a startlingly complex range of questions relating to identity, gender, social structure, mortality and ultimately how we attempt to define our existence.

Rather than being a constant physiological entity (as people would vainly like to believe), the body is a continual process of decay and regeneration, a cellular robe that undergoes innumerable changes - both within itself and in terms of our perception of it - until its inevitable demise. It is an envelope endowed with ever-changing contours and predestined to limited duration, a vessel of contamination and purification. Skin is our first and most essential vestment, one that is soon, however, concealed under the clothes that form the life-long mediator between one's inner self and the external 'otherness' of the world outside: class, religon, ethnicity, the male-female divide, and, of course, the pervasive and historically binding influence of fashion. Clothes project what the individual imagines to be a unique self-image, yet on the contrary they symbolise just as much the reverse pressure brought on the individual to merge into collective or corporate being. What we wear is as much the patching together of inward disintegration as it is a statement of reassured inner integrity. The mind, the body, and all that occurs in the 'non-self sphere' lying beyond find their mutual juncture precisely in the textile buffer zone we bond ourselves with, day after day.

Through keen observation and diligent execution, Karen LaMonte has succeeded in elaborating a vivid artistic topography of the endlessly fluctuating status of clothes (to use Tadeusz Kantor's phrase) as objects 'suspended between garbage and eternity'. Her glass sculptures are the product of a painstaking dual casting process mapping, with a single shell, the surface of the body inside and the surface of the garment outside. Taken from real bodies and real clothes, the literally life-size cast becomes a kind of abandoned dwelling place, a permanent imprint of ephemeral and fragile human presence. In this sense, her work finds parallels in the approaches of both Magdalena Abakanowicz and Rachel Whiteread. Arising out of the organic templates of body and cloth, the transposing process is not simply physical but metaphysical, as movement and life are frozen in the timelessness of glass. The vulnerability of the moment is preserved and taken outside the flow of time, while interdependent layers of flesh, garment and identity are symbolically revealed and united in their translucence. It is a specifically female corporeality that we witness here; stylised, scorned, deformed, depersonalised, abused and marginalized by society over the course of history, a fecund bearer of new life that the modern age has transformed into the most potent media commodity. LaMonte's sculptures seem clear-headedly to encode the age-old dilemma of perceiving the female body, tantalisingly balanced as they are between the detached ideal of 'the seen' and the direct tactile involvement of 'the felt'. Bereft of their wearer, LaMonte's glass dresses are, even so, invested with an almost inexplicable life of their own, as if radiating the residual energy of their departed 'other half'. Armless and headless, they unexpectedly recall the effigies of classical antiquity whose broken incompleteness bears symbolic witness to the pathos of human mortality.

Along with her sculptural pieces, Karen LaMonte has evolved a special monotype technique on both opaque and translucent paper that enables her to make perceptive records of the life latently encoded in the apparent lifelessness of old clothes. She calls them Sartoriotypes (sartorial of or relating to tailored clothing, plus type meaning image and impression). Blind to colour but hypersensitive to texture, the paper on which the monotypes are printed renders an almost X-ray-like image of the garment, a view through the layers of fabric - and through the tissue of time, to when the ripples and crumples we see in the prints were created by the active limbs of a unique human experience. It is an experience portrayed somehow fleetingly, an apparition of reanimated identity. LaMonte's monotypes are made, as she says herself, in relation and communication with her glass sculptures; recently, she has made prints comprising the complete image of a dress and its outline which, viewed together in semi-transparency, creates a subtle and haunting shadow play evoking the fragility of our cognition in the passage of time. A key channel of the dialogue between LaMonte's three-dimensional sculpture and her prints is her work in glass bas-relief; here, the dress and the overcoat become simple, monumental symbols recalling Giacomo Manzù's masterful understanding of the powerful humanist charge that can be achieved through the illusory volume-and-void architecture of relief.

Karen LaMonte's highly distinctive understanding of the human condition has, over the past few years, been profoundly enhanced by living in Prague, a city at the crossroads of tangled Central European fate. The Czech Republic represents an historical context of diverse interaction across divides of nationality and religion that was, however, brutally severed in the 20th century by war and totalitarianism. Filled with the myriad echoes of individual lives determined by social, political and cultural upheaval, this milieu cannot fail to make a significant impact on the artist sensitive to the hidden layers of intimate consciousness. It is precisely this fabric of memory, with its ever-shifting locus and imprints, that forms the essence of LaMonte's creative expression. In her work, it is at once elegy and moral conscience.

Karen LaMonte je vedoucí predstavitelkou mladší generace amerických výtvarníku používajících sklo ve velkoformátových plastikách. Šaty 4, nedávná akvizice v soucasné dobe vystavovaná Národní galerií Austrálie v Canberre, jsou jakoby oblecené na neviditelné ženské postave a odkazují jak ke klasickému reckému a rímskému figurativnímu socharství, tak i k modernímu tvarosloví ženského formálního vecerního odevu. Vnitrní prázdnota této sochy si podržuje otisk lidského tela; její pruzracnost komentuje identitu, úlohu oblékání v genderové politice i promenu ženského tela v umení a móde na objekt. Zahalující oblecení, které ženy ciní neproniknutelnými ci témer neviditelnými v nekterých nezápadních spolecnostech, nadále vyvolává diskusi o tom, jakou moc mají priléhavé hadríky pri zprostredkování sexuálních vztahu. Zatímco jednou cástí našeho vnímání tohoto díla Karen LaMonte chceme oslavovat jeho socharskou asertivnost a imponující remeslné provedení, její prusvitné šaty nás proti naší vuli unášejí do vypjaté ríše zneviditelnené ženy a s tím spojených území voayerství, fetišismu a touhy.

Autorcina umelecká tvorba se vyvinula z jejího zájmu o marionety a kostýmy italské commedie dell'arte, které ztvárnila ve foukaném skle a sklenené asambláži. Ve svých raných pracích se zabývá koncepcí "neviditelné" lidské prítomnosti, která oživuje chování a fyzické pohyby marionet. Tradicní divadelní prostredek temnoty, obklopující a zakrývající loutkáre, je v její tvorbe nahrazen takrka naprostou pruhledností, v níž jsou kostýmy oživeny neviditelnou existencí. Tyto práce jsou metaforou neviditelných, ale kulturne podmínených sil, které predurcují lidské chování.

Dílo Karen LaMonte pred nás staví výtvarnou hádanku, vyznacující se na první pohled lehkostí a pruzracností, avšak pri bližším ohledání monumentálne závažnou a chladne, smrtelne fyzickou. Objekt sám je evidentne dutý, avšak otisk nositelky tohoto ledového krunýre je ve skle nadále patrný a autorka sama se stává neviditelným manipulátorem nikoliv pouze usporádání materiálu, forem a procesu, ale též obtisknutého obrazu a svedectví o této neviditelné žene. Byla to Popelka, která v zoufalém boji s casem za sebou zanechala místo strevícku celé šaty, nebo Lotova žena, pozdeji potrestaná nejakou bizarní transmutací soli ve sklo? Možná že byla smyslnou Anitou Ekbergovou, jejíž mokré plesové šaty na klasickém pozadí Fontany di Trevi navždy vykrystalizovaly do pojmu la dolce vita, ci princeznou Dianou, mediálne zkonstruovaným obrazem její krehké a choulostivé módnosti na momentce, na níž se zastavil cas. V populárních predstavách se tyto famózní ženy vymanují ze svých pozemských pout a nám ostatním ponechávají obvyklé stopy, z nichž lze vykonstruovat jejich památku.

Zatímco krištálové šaty Karen LaMonte v nás vyvolávají vzpomínku na to, jak jsme videli a predstavovali si sami sebe v porovnání s reálným i fiktivním životem takových žen, jejich nositelka zustává anonymní. Pozustatky otisku její pózy patrí do lexikonu klasicismu a idealizované krásy, ale presto nám jejich rozclenená stavba umožnuje v duchu posoudit jednotlivé cásti stejne chladne a analyticky, jako když redaktor casopisu hodnotí fyzické atributy manekýnky. Pred námi nejsou jen šaty na postave, ale šaty, které jsou postavou, vnejší a vymenitelná kuže, která zde zastupuje jejich nositelku. Stejne jako vune parfému na chodbe muže zpusobit, že daleko intenzivneji vnímáme ženu, která tudy prošla, tuto záhadnou bytost prozaruje svetlo, odhalující její tvary a držení tela, které však zároven dokazuje, že skutecne zmizela. Mužeme si jenom predstavovat sklon hlavy a ramen, pohyby paží a rukou, vlasy a hlas této nyní éterické bytosti a spekulovat o tom, na jakou akci si tyto šaty oblékla. Tak jako haute couture zachycuje urcitý postoj a období v case a prežívá své klienty a nositele v muzeálních odevních sbírkách, tak šaty Karen LaMonte zosobnují hodnocení klasického ideálu v moderním svete zobrazování tela a módní manipulace.

LaMonte se narodila v New Yorku v roce 1967 a studovala sklo na Rhode Island School of Design, kde v roce 1990 získala titul Bakalár výtvarných umení s vyznamenáním. Do sklárského sveta vstoupila na Pilchuck Glass School v Seattlu a pozdeji na UrbanGlass v New Yorku. Od roku 1998 žije a pracuje v Ceské republice, a ve školním roce 1999/2000 studovala na Vysoké škole umeleckoprumyslové v Praze. V Ceské republice vytvorila cyklus tavených sklenených šatu (vcetne Šatu 4), které vznikly ve sklárské huti a studiu Pelechov Zdenka Lhotského, jehož vklad do techniky a tradice ceského hutního prumyslového a ateliérového skla je mezi umelci vysoce ocenován. Ve spolupráci se zkušenými sklárskými odborníky vytvorila LaMonte voskové modely svého vlastního tela i tel jiných, podle nichž tito sklári vyrobili voskové odlitky pro vnitrní formy. Pres tyto formy byly navleceny šaty a zrasená látka, a pak vyrobeny další formy pro vnejší povrch techto plastik. Mezi vnitrní a vnejší formu se pak nalilo sklo, které se dlouho vypalovalo, z nehož vznikla dutá forma se silnými stenami takrka perletové pruzracnosti.

Robert Bell
Vedoucí kurátor pro dekorativní umení a design
Národní galerie Austrálie
© Ríjen 2002
Preklad Vladimíra Žáková

Dale and Doug Anderson have two airy, art-filled homes, in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida. Until l

ast fall, their New York apartment contained a large, arresting collection of contemporary glass, ceramics and fiber cohabiting with contemporary and vintage Native American art from the Northwest Coast.

That Northwest Coast art is gone now. Shelves lining the living room display carefully selected groupings of work by just a few artists rather than the previous wide-ranging array of objects. Intense, large-scale color photographs dominate the walls. For the Andersons, who are known for their craft collection, medium is no longer a determining factor in what they collect, and objects, even entire collections, come and go. As to their preferences in art, the Andersons' approach to collecting mirrors a general trend in art wherein categorization by material is no longer relevant. Artistic intent and content determine how a work of art will be understood and desired.

Their generous, repeated donations to art museums-over 700 pieces given to 14 institutions in the last 20 years-and their advocacy on behalf of artists-scholarships, curatorial programs, support of museum exhibitions-distinguish them as a new breed of enlightened, 21st-century collector. Most collectors have a relationship with one or two museums. Glass collectors, that most generous and supportive subgroup within contemporary collecting, do extremely well at serving on boards and fundraising for nonprofit groups in which they have an interest. But few collectors attempt the scale and intensity of the Andersons' ongoing involvement.

How do they do what they do? Dale is the aesthete, Doug the strategist. "Doug came home one day with a Richard Marquis teapot," Dale recalls. "He said, 'I am going to change your life.' And he did!" That quixotic murrine teapot is the only object Doug would ever bring home. "Dale loves the act of finding things that are very new, so she is our scout and our curator. I would never intrude in what she's thinking about," Doug explains. "My college degree is in art history and that is where my understanding of our collecting comes from. I am perfectly happy with my role, which has to do with pruning at a very high level. It's about taking what you've got and making it look as important as it ought to be, and giving the material the respect it ought to have."

Explaining their arts advocacy, Doug recalls, "As we were collecting the studio crafts movement, we were collecting the artists as friends. And one of the things that we wished to do was to be an advocate for them. We have been as active as we know how to be. George and Dorothy Saxe are among our closest friends, and they were the ones who inspired us to give up our privacy and invite people into our home, which is what they have done for years." Dale adds, "For me, there is no greater pleasure than having someone come to the house, look at the work of an artist, ask me for the gallery and then have them tell me they bought something. What could be better? That is sharing. I love it if people come away from my home with a bit of knowledge that they pursue further."

Glass reigns in the opalescent, humid light of the Andersons' Florida apartment, where they have assembled impressive works by the most influential artists in the medium. It is no ordinary survey. A dramatic, self-confident installation by Dale Chihuly meets the uneasy and halting ceramic sculpture of Doug Jeck; an aggressive Gregory Grenon portrait of a perturbed woman overlooks a room where shelves display petite, pretty objects and vessels that, on second glance, are not as innocent as they appear. An unmistakable undercurrent of something more complicated, something on edge, comes through even as I am lulled by the beauty and restfulness.

A new direction is immediately apparent in the New York apartment. It is sparely installed and my first impression is of the dominance of beautiful insects, as in the suite of oversize photographs, The Food Chain, by Catherine Chalmers, and Dale's own mounted petit point embroideries of many kinds of insects. There are large, color photographs by Sandy Skoglund and Anthony Goicolea, their imagery surreal and thought-provoking. And on Doug's desk-"for perspective," he says-are a series of five black-and-white photographs by Duane Michaels, Grandpa Goes to Heaven.

The sculpture in glass, clay and fiber has been carefully selected, with a focus on few rather than many artists. In glass, Dale Chihuly, Gregory Grenon, Karen LaMonte, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, Paul Marioni and Ann Troutner, Dante Marioni, Richard Marquis, William Morris, Jay Musler, Tom Patti, Martin Rosol, Ginny Ruffner, Joyce Scott, Steven Weinberg and Toots Zynsky. In clay, Meg Ford, David Gilhooly, Doug Jeck, Michael Lucero and Akio Takamori. And in fiber, Carol Eckert. The photography and glass go particularly well together, sharing a propensity for luscious color and technical intensity. The layers of meaning in the photographs encourage me to examine the sculpture more closely. The impression is of a carefully tended, very personal collection.

The Andersons insist on not storing art away-they must live with what they own. And as they acquire, they give away. "There was a moment, particularly with glass, when things were happening fast and I was buying a lot," Dale recalls. "Doug would say, 'Where are you going to put it?' And I would answer, 'I don't know, someplace.' He finally told me, 'You know what? We can't see anything anymore. Besides, the point of doing all this is that it is not just for us to have, it is really for other people to see.' I got it. And I told him he was absolutely right. So, when we finally made the decision to give art away, the decision was to give the pieces we liked, that were really good. Not the stuff in a closet that no one wants, but work that makes a difference." "Our motto," says Doug, "is 'Give 'til it hurts.'"

Giving art to museums provides the opportunity for advocacy as well as for pruning. The Andersons' relationship with the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach is one example. "We view the Norton as a strategic place," says Doug. "You have part-time residents from all over the country who are very involved with the museum, and who have great influence in their own communities. If sculpture in glass and other media is validated here, it goes back. Say you have a guy who's on the board of the Norton, but who's from Chicago, and on the board of the Art Institute. What he learns there, he takes home."

The Andersons do not want to build the most comprehensive collection, only the one that is best for them, the variable being that their definition of "best" is constantly changing. "Part of our collecting is about influencing people, about letting them look at art so that they are challenged but not confronted," says Dale. "If they see Doug and me living with art, they are less threatened by it-it's not art with a capital A. We talk about it, they look and ask questions, and all of a sudden something connects and a dialogue begins."

Tina Oldknow is Curator of Modern Glass at the Coming Museum of Glass and the author of Pilchuck: A Glass School (1996) and other books, including Richard Marquis Objects (1997) and Dante Marioni: Blown Glass (2000).

Los caminos del vidrio son inescrutables. Originales ideas y novedosas técnicas se entrecruzan para ofrecer resultados espectaculares. Mediante la técnica del casting, Karen LaMonte desenmascara cada una de estas sendas e hilvana la precisa aguja del arte para confeccionar elegantes vestidos en vidrio.

La trayectoria artística de Karen LaMonte, nacida en Estados Unidos en el año 1967, se forma a caballo entre su país natal y la República Checa. A pesar del estancamiento al que fue sometido el movimiento artístico checo, LaMonte se deja seducir por el mosaico de pintores, escultores y otros artistas que encontraron en el vidrio el material idóneo con el que expresar sus ideas.

Tras años de experimentación y enseñanza en el continente americano, el estudio de Zdenek Lhotsky fundado en los años 50 en la ciudad checa de Pelechov, se convirtió en el refugio de la artista. Con el miedo de quien se embarca en un proyecto que difiere de lo establecido, LaMonte presenta un ambicioso desafío: la creación mediante la técnica del casting de vestidos de vidrio a escala real.

Lhotsky quedó entusiasmado con el reto de conseguir una pieza complicada y, por su parte, los fabricantes de moldes encontraron alentador el encargo de una nueva propuesta diferente a lo visto hasta el momento.

De esta manera, la artista empezó a confeccionar originales vestidos para niños para diversificar su obra en una auténtica pasarela en vidrio. Su capacidad por capturar el gesto queda plasmada en cada una de sus confecciones: bultos y pliegues consiguen evocar "animados seres ya ausentes, una forma humana sin un cuerpo humano".

Su línea de vestuario, que desborda vida y elegancia, consigue exportar la mundanalidad de cada gesto cotidiano a la magia imperecedera del vidrio. Además de la originalidad de sus diseños, Karen LaMonte define su obra en tomo a una particular concepción del arte: "La gente está tan cautivada con la técnica que pierde de vista sus propias ideas. Ideas y técnica son como dos pies andando, uno no puede ir sin el otro".

Tijeras, aguja, hilo e imaginación se ponen a la entera disposición del arte en vidrio.

FORMACIÓN:
1988: Escuela de Cerámica de Penland, Penland (Estados Unidos).
1989-1996: Escuela de Vidrio de Pilchuck, Seattle (Estados Unidos).
1990: Escuela de Diseño Rhode Island,Providence (Estados Unidos).
1999-2000: Academia de Arte, Arquitectura y Diseño, Praga (República Checa).

PREMIOS:
Julio - Septiembre 1999: "Vidrio Creativo de las Tierras del Norte", Residencia Escocesa.
1999-2000: "Escultura de vidrio colado en la República Checa", Beca Fulbright.
2000: "Premio a la Excelencia", por el Manhattan Arts International.

MUESTRAS EN MUSEOS:
1998
- "VIII Muestra Symposium Internacional de Arte Húngaro en Vidrio", Vysegrad Fortress (Hungría).
- "¡Disfrázate! Vestidos y Complementos", Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine (EE.UU.).

2000
- "Luz en Vidrio", Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson (Estados Unidos).
- "El Vidrio en Contexto", GlasMuseum, Frauenau (Alemania).

2001
- "La realidad cambia: Imágenes representativas en un medio diferente", Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus (Estados Unidos).
- "Rompiendo Moldes: Vidrio Conceptuar, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio (Estados Unidos).

EXPOSICIONES INDIVIDUALES Y COLECTIVAS:
1997
- "Juguetes de vidrio: ponis, marionetas y barcos", exposición individual en The Glass
Gallery, Bethesda (Estados Unidos).
- "Muestra de la Facultad UrbanGlass", Robert Lehman Gallery, Brookiyn, Nueva York (Estados Unidos).

1999
- "La magia de Venecia", exposición abierta de arte de alta calidad, Las Vegas (Estados Unidos).
- "Un encuentro del vidrio", Sable V Fine Art Gallery, Wimberley (Estados Unidos).

2000
- "El vidrio: una celebración", Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Nueva York (Estados Unidos).
- "SOFÁ", exposición internacional de objetos escultóricos y arte funcional, Nueva York y Chicago (Estados Unidos).
- "Sombras coladas", exposición de dos artistas, Portia Gallery, Chicago (Estados Unidos).
- "Iconos, Ídolos y Arquetipos", Morgan Contemporany Glass Gallery, Pittsburgh (Estados Unidos).
- "Obrazy Obrazy', Zacheta Gallery, Varsovia (Polonia).

2001
- "Impresiones Ausentes", exposición individual en Heller Gallery, Nueva York (Estados Unidos).
- "SOFÁ: Maestros del Vidrio Colado", Exposición Internacional de objetos escultóricos y arte funcional, Nueva York (Estados Unidos).
- Fabricado en la República Checa", exposición en grupo, Praga (República Checa).
- "Mujeres visionarias: una Exposición de Escultura en Vidrio", Bausch & Lomb Gallery, Rochester, Nueva York (Estados Unidos).
-" Vidrio América", selección nacional de arte contemporáneo, Heller Gallery, Nueva York (Estados Unidos).

COLECCIONES EN ESTADOS UNIDOS:
The Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson.
Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine.
The Corning Museum, Corning.
The Museum of American Glass, Miliville.
Saxe Collection.
Wendy and Peter Joseph, Nueva York.
Paul Stankard, Nueva Jersey.
Doug & Dale Anderson Collection, Nueva York.

Na rozdíl od rady ceských umelcu, kterí kvuli "americkému snu" putují za velkou louži, žije Americanka Karen LaMonte v Cechách. A její sny se naplnují.

Co rodilou Newyorcanku privedlo do Prahy?
Sklo. Chtela jsem vyrobit svoji první velkou tavenou sklenenou sochu. A to není možné nikde jinde než v Cechách, ve sklárské dílne v Pelechove.

Ted tedy pracujete na kolekci sklenených šatu - tak jak jste puvodne chtela, bez kompromisu ve výrobe. Jak vubec vznikl tenhle nápad?
Zacalo to mojí prací na marionetách a manáscích pro loutkový film na námet Danteho "Pekla". Strávila jsem nad nimi spoustu casu a vymýšlela jim složité oblecky. A tak mne napadlo, že by nebylo marné zkusit je udelat ze skla. První sklenené šatickyjsem vyfoukala v roce 1993. Už tehdy jsem vedela, že bych mohla dosáhnout vetšího efektu v detailech, pokud bych je vyrábela jinou technologií - tavením. Tak jsem ten nápad rozvinula.

...a zacala vyrábet šaty v "životní velikosti".
Jejich velikost ale není to nejduležitejší. V mé práci se neustále promítá jedno téma: forma a tvar lidské bytosti a sociální aspekt lidského bytí. Oblecení vnímám jako metaforu pro lidskou identifikaci a sebeprezentaci. Všichni vlastne máme dve kuže. Vymezují naše tvary a obrysy, definují, co jsme zac. Ta první je kuže prirozená - ta, na kterou si mažeme krémy a olejícky. Tu skrýváme a maskujeme, balíme do druhé kuže -šatu. To je kuže sociální, spolecenská. Baví me odhalovat tyto lidské lži.

Jak dlouho vám trvá výroba jednech šatu?
Témer sedm mesícu! Neco pres dva mesíce trvá, než vyrobím voskový model, který se používá jako pozitiv. Na vymodelování jeho tvaru používám vosk a ten pak "oblékám" do skutecných šatu. Z modelu se odleje sádrová forma, ve které se šaty "uvezní". Vosk se pak musí z formy vytavit a látka odstranit. Tím vznikne prostor pro sklo. Další mesíc se forma suší a pak teprve prichází na radu samotné tavení skla. Pri takto velkých šatech to trvá další mesíc. Do poslední chvíle trnu, jestli neprasknou. Chce to porádnou dávku trpelivosti.

Své sklenené objekty prodáváte hlavne v Americe. Je pro vás složité udržet se za oceánem v povedomí verejnosti a zákazníku, když vetšinu casu trávíte tady?
Máte pravdu, že pokud clovek na pár mesícu zmizí z New Yorku, jakoby zemrel. Na druhou stranu záleží, kam zmizí. Když jsem se odstehovala do Prahy, lidé v Americe si to vysvetlovali jako projev mého zapálení a odhodlání. Americané stále vzhlíží k evropské kulture, evropským mestum a evropskému umení. Také díky tomuto pozitivnímu vnímání, prestože ted nejsem fyzicky na newyorské scéne prítomná, o mne lidé vedí a mají zájem vystavovat moje veci. Chcete-li udržet kontakt, musíte mít samozrejme dobrého galeristu. A já myslím, že mám v New Yorku toho nejlepšího. Heller Galleryje celosvetove uznávaná špicka v obchodu se skleneným umením. Mimochodem, Heller prodává a vystavuje dlouhá léta také Brychtovou a Libenského.

Je pro me obrovskou poctou být v jejich spolecnosti. Je pro vás život v Cechách hodne jiný než ten v Americe?
Všechno je tu naprosto jiné! Miluju život v Praze, ráda poznávám zdejší zvyky a kulturu. Fascinuje me predevším vaše historie, je tady hmatatelná, a to Americe chybí. Na zacátku pro me bylo taky hodne težké naucit se alespon trochu jazyk. Studovala jsem na deseti ruzných jazykových školách! Presto, nebo možná práve proto, ceštinu neustále vraždím. Pro Cecha musí být rozhovor se mnou bud velká zábava, anebo utrpení. Ale spíš to bude to první, protože se lidé casto válí smíchy i ve chvílích, kdy mluvím o dost vážných vecech.

Prijela jste také kvuli škole. Jak se vám studovalo na ceské umelecké škole?
Systém výuky je absolutne jiný než u nás. V Cechách mají studenti výtvarnou prupravu už ze strední školy. Na vysokou školu vstupují pripraveni, urcitým smerem zamereni, hledají si specializované ateliéry. V Americe pricházejí na vysoké umelecké školy lidé bez jakéhokoliv predchozího umeleckého vzdelání. První rok na univerzite je proto venován základum, výuka se zameruje na úvod do všech oblastí umení, také na rozvoj dovednosti a zrucnosti. Americký studijní program je hodne strukturovaný, vyznacuje se spoustou striktních požadavku a studijních úkolu. Mám pocit, že v Cechách je nejtežší cástí studia samotný akt prijetí na umeleckou školu. Pokud se to podarí, mají studenti daleko vetší svobodu a volnost pro vlastní tvorbu.

Ješte zpátky k vašim skleneným šatum. Kde byste je nejradeji vystavila?
V expozici Metropolitního muzea v New Yorku. Moc by jim to slušelo ve spolecnosti soch ze starého Recka a Ríma! Anebo bych je postavila do výkladní skríne slavného newyorského obchodního domu Barney's.

Od sklenených šatu není až tak daleko k móde. Premýšlela jste nekdy o tomto tvurcím prostoru?
Stále více me láká a pritahuje. Ostatne, už jsem zacala pracovat na prvních nápadech a návrzích... Jsem zvedavá, jak hodne nebo málo mi bude tenhle svet vzdálený.

SERVIS
Heller Gallery oslaví 30 let existence. Za tuto dobu uvedli na americkou scénu vetšinu významných ceských sklárských výtvarníku: Stanislava Libenského a Jaroslavu Brychtovou, Danu Zámecníkovou, Mariana Karla, Ivana Mareše, Ivanu šrámkovou, Jaromíra Rybáka a Petra Horu. V posledních letech vystavovali také objekty Vladimíra Bachoríka, Milana Handla, Pavla Hlavy, Ronyho Plesla, Aleše Vašícka a Františka Víznera.

Fashion is where art and commerce mix. Last year more things that look like clothes (and even exhibitions of brand name designers) popped up in museums and galleries around New York. The Armani retrospective at the Guggenheim, Issey Miyake's installation at the Ace Gallery, the "Uniform: Order and Disorder" exhibition at P.S.1 and Contemporary Art Center, Creative Time's avant-garde fashion installation at the Anchorage in the Brooklyn Bridge are just a few examples of the growing trend of the interpenetration between art and fashion. As well, artists like Louis Bourgeois, Leslie Dill, Mathew Barney, Vanessa Beecroft and Cindy Sherman have been using clothing as a metaphor for self-representation, the body, economic systems and materialism. But why is the contemporary art world so interested in garments and adornment?

Clothing has become the primary way in which we identify class and personal style. Fashion evolutions trace and mirror the political and social changes that we are undergoing in society. Often the current fashion trends-which oscillate between constriction and liberation-tell us more about how the body is viewed in culture than philosophy, science or politics. Artists who want to prompt viewers to think about our inner experiences and the ways that we conceal them and who also want to expose power and gender structures have turned to fashion as the primary vehicle to express these dialects.

Paralleling the interest in clothing in the contemporary art world, in the past eight years there has been a resurgence of interest in the glass world in the body and clothing. One of the artists who has been in the forefront of this movement has been glass sculptor Karen LaMonte. Since 1995 LaMonte has been working with the clothed body as her primary visual image. LaMonte's interest in clothing is twofold. "I use clothing as a metaphor for identity and human presence. I believe we have two skins that outline and define who we are. One of course is our natural skin, but we obscure and conceal it beneath clothing which is a second skin, our social skin."

At first LaMonte focused on producing a series of glass puppets based on Dante's Inferno and the characters in the Commedia dell'Arte. This coterie of kings, devils and jokers allowed LaMonte to explore the expressiveness of glass in both specificity of technique and abstract form. To personalize and differentiate each piece LaMonte pinched and deformed the garments of each puppet to mimic the natural folds of clothing.

Later, LaMonte created smaller glass dresses out of recycled bottles and hung them on a miniature clothesline. These dresses had to be made quickly as the bottles came out of the glory hole, as there was a limited amount of working time before the glass hardened. These dresses captured the immediacy of the glass blowing gesture but failed to create the look of fabric so LaMonte began to focus on honing her mold making skills. Her goals in using the mold blowing process was to better represent the texture of the fabrics she was using as inspiration and to increase the scale of the work. These pieces ranged in height from one to two feet. The results were doll-like-highly textured empty shells headless and armless that seemed to float in space.

These pieces were closer to what LaMonte had envisioned, but she still wanted to increase the size. As anyone who has worked in glass knows there it is time consuming and difficult to create large-scale work. Not only do you need large annealers, great molds and skilled cold-workers, you also need a lot of capital for research and development, as there will be a lot of failure.

At UrbanGlass and Pilchuck, where LaMonte was creating most of her work, there were technical limitations that made it impossible for her to attain her final goal of making a life-sized dress. So after a year or so of research, LaMonte decided that the only place where these pieces could be realized would be in the Czech Republic. The casting facilities there were already geared towards largescale work and had been producing monumental pieces for artists like Libensky´ and Brychtová. The only problem was that the Czech aesthetic tended towards complete geometrical abstraction so LaMonte knew that it would be a challenge for them to create detailed figurative molds.

In 1998 LaMonte received a Fulbright Fellowship to go to the Czech Republic to study glass casting with Zdenek Lhotský at the famous Pelechov studio founded by Jaroslavá Brychtová in the 1950s. LaMonte says of her initial experience, "I was nervous to introduce my dress project to Lhotský since it differs so greatly from Czech glass, but he was excited by the idea and enthusiastic about the challenge of making such a complicated piece. The mold makers themselves were even more excited-it was refreshing for them to see something new." She started by making a cast of a child's dress and much to the factory workers surprise wanted to participate in the fabrication process. This flies in the face of the traditional way of working in the Czech Republic where there is a complete disjunction between the artist/designer and the fabricators. LaMonte's interest in learning in detail the casting process from start to finish however, turned out to be quite important as it allowed her to build a relationship with the workers and gave them the impetus to push the envelope of their skills.

Over the next two years LaMonte continued to work with the Pelechov factory and began to work on larger molds. She used art students, prostitutes and herself as models for the interiors of a series of human-scaled pieces. These waxes took several months to produce. LaMonte says, "The human body is the single thing that everyone has in common-it is a universal form which speaks to everyone on a personal level. Scale was extremely important to me-the cast glass pieces are made from found objects in their original state-so the final pieces needed to exist on a human scale so they would possess human presence." Once the waxes were created she made castings of the bodies and then added clothing to these forms. She then took waxes of the clothing and made molds of the clothed bodies. Once these were completed she made hollow castings that would articulate the interior and exterior forms. One concession that LaMonte had to make though, was that the pieces that were larger than three or four feet tall would have to be made in several parts-as even the annealers at Pelechov are not large enough to accommodate anything larger and there would be too high of a risk of mold failure.

The fruits of her labor were realized in 2000 when the first series of dresses that were cast at Pelechov were shown at the Heller Gallery and at Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York. LaMonte showed several types of pieces: large bas-reliefs and the multipart hollow cast pieces. In her most recent body of work Dress 4 and 6, 2001 and the smaller Dress 3 and 5, 2001, LaMonte has finally hit her stride. Over the past two years the factory has been able to learn how to refine the mold-making process and the casting of the pieces to create sculptures that perfectly captured a sense of temporality and the gray area between the recognition of the human form and the complete absence of the appendages, head usually, associated with the body. As well, LaMonte has been working on a series of prints made by inking dresses that she showed alongside the dress during her last solo exhibition at the Heller Gallery in May, 2001.

Brett Littman is an art critic based in New York City He is also Executive Director of Administration of Dieu Donne Papermill

Glass casting is probably closer to traditional sculpture methods than any other glassworking technique. It is commonplace to say that you can do anything with hot glass that you can do with bronze. Well, sort of. The mold making and the investment procedure is the same, but glass is probably more difficult. It certainly is more temperamental. Then there is the question of kiln-casting: bits of glass are melted in a mold inside of a furnace/annealer. Pate de verre writ large. Casting, whether hot or warm, is very different from glass blowing. We will leave aside slumping-or glass made hot enough to slump into or onto a mold-since casting doesn't seem quite the word. Casting glories in the solid as opposed to the hollow. We are in the realm of rock hard ice rather than that of soap bubbles. The techniques may be opposed, but the results are not always what you would expect; delicacy is not automatically excluded. Certain cast-glass sculptures by Howard Ben Tre have negative forms trapped inside. And the floating symbols inside Bertil Vallien's sandcastings can be as poetic as a lampworked bee.

     In the middle of our special cast glass issue, we sample a range of works (and techniques). Ben Tre and Vallien are the masters. Daniel Clayman and Mark Ferguson are the intermediate contenders. But we need to cast a wider net.

     Karen LaMonte's amazing cast glass dress is the quest that started a deeper look into Czech Glass (see her article in this issue). Alan Glovsky's solid glass houses evolved out of imagery he explored over years while creating multi-media installations; he has suspended his houses in mid-air and now, in his latest series, they are on tall thin bases that end at the ground in rockers. Steve Tobin thinks big: in his earlier blown glass cocoons and in his installations using tons of medical glass. Most recently he has been making bronze castings of termite mounds in Africa. Pictured here is one door from his door series-all cast glass-installed in an underground pool as part of a series of installations in Retritti, Finland in 1993.

     Sean Mercer is the new cast glass star, using other materials as well as glass in his forceful wall and floor pieces. Tessa Clegg, in England, casts elegant pieces that present great formal clarity. Finally Rick Beck harkens back to the industrial in bold cast glass pieces that hold their own as sculpture. Just as some are drawn to glass, as opposed to clay or fiber or metal or wood, within glass there is also a range of temperaments that can be satisfied through certain techniques and not others. Glassblowing is quick and flashy. On the other hand working on molds can be as thrilling as watching paint dry.

     Cast glass, whether hot or warm, is cool. It's virtues are many: weight, mass and quiet presence. But do not underestimate the temporal dimensions. Cast glass gives time a solid form.

     After working in the New York as an artist and teacher for seven years and spending summers at Pilchuck, I moved to the Czech Republic. I wanted to make a life-size, hollow cast glass dress. I knew the piece would be technically very complicated and since the world renown center for large scale casting is the Czech Republic, I decided to pack my bags and go for it.

     Although I was not inspired by the Czech glass art I had seen exhibited in the states, I was very impressed with its technical excellence. It seemed to me that Czech artists were still stifled and stagnated by forty years of communism. It was a stark contrast to the movement I was leaving in the States which was exuberant with artists constantly producing, filled with spontaneity and exploration. Therefore, when I came to the Czech Republic, I was focused simply on learning casting techniques.

     I have been surprised to discover that the Czech glass art movement is abundant and in many ways more mature and diverse than in the States. The differences between the two movements can be largely attributed to their beginnings. To understand, you have go back to the end of W.W.II. After years of Nazi occupation, Czechoslovakia expelled most remaining Germans, which included many of the owners, technicians, designers and decorators of the once flourishing glass industry. To save the industry, a number of recent graduates from the Applied Arts Academy in Prague went to the factories and literally taught them how to make and use glass. The artists, in turn, were able to set up small ateliers within the industrial complexes and had access to unbelievable resources for their personal work, including skilled factory workers. These young artists became the mothers and fathers of the Czechoslovak industrial and studio glass art movements and their names - Libensky, Roubicek among the many - and their formal style are still synonymous with Czech glass.

     During 1950's Stalinism, all 'art' had to conform to the government approved Social Realist style. For a variety of reasons, glass art largely escaped repression and censorship. As a result, many painters, sculptors and other artists sought refuge in glass art, introducing to the glass movement many people with no technical skills or experience with glass, only the desire to use this material as a vehicle for their ideas. Thus, the Czechoslovak glass movement began with an abundant variety of expression in glass when the first studio glass furnaces had not even been built in the United States!

     This influx of non-glass artists furthered the traditional European divide between artist and fabricator. This contrasts starkly with the start of the studio glass movement in the US where the biggest hurdle has been manual skills and glass working facilities and, as a result, being a great technician has been more prized than being a great conceptualist.

     In addition, these two approaches to handling the material have formed dramatically different glass art communities. In the US, glass artists are forced to work together to build studios, act as skilled assistants to each other, and learn in centers like Pilchuck and UrbanGlass. This creates a dynamic environment in which interaction is mandatory. In the Czech Republic, there is not such a cohesive community. Instead, artists work independently, grouping themselves into other categories around ideology, generation, or exhibition gallery. Perhaps I had difficulty appreciating how inspired and vivacious the contemporary Czech glass art movement is because of its disparate almost secretive nature.

CASTING GLASS

     I came to learn casting and was lucky to start in the studio of Zdenek Lhotsky, in the small town of Pelechov. Lhotsky's studio was originally founded in the 1950s by Jaroslava Brychtova and used by Brychtova and Libensky to make much of their work. It specializes in making large scale cast glass on a magnitude impossible anywhere else.

     I was a little nervous to introduce my dress project to Lhotsky since it differs so greatly from Czech glass, but he was exited by the idea itself and enthusiastic about the challenge of making such a complicated piece. The mold-makers themselves were even more exited - it was refreshing for them to see something new. Before tackling the adult size, I started with a child's dress. My request to work with them in the studio and learn from them piqued their interest. They jokingly called me a spy as I took notes and photos of every step of the process, but I think they were flattered by my recognition of their expertise, particularly because Czech glass casting is suffering from a lack of local interest amongst younger craftsmen. There are no young workers in the factory and the youngest mold maker is over 50. Lhotsky explained that no young people from Pelechov were willing to work so hard for so little money. They would rather have a more modern, well paid job or no work at all. The skills these craftsmen have developed over the past 30 years are not taught in any academic glass program and will be lost. Although I have quite a bit of casting experience from the States, I learned more in making molds with them than I ever could have expected!

WORK BY CZECH ARTISTS

For me, it has been exiting not only to learn these techniques, but to see the breadth of work being made in the Czech Republic especially since before coming here all I was exposed to was the work of the more established generations. To show this breadth as well as the varying attitudes of the artists toward their material, I have choosen a variety of glass work simultaneously being made in the Czech Republic.

LIBENSKY-BRYCHTOVA

Because Libensky-Brychtova are so famous and their work so significant, there is an incredible amount of information available about them. So I will not attempt to go into detail here. I will only include a photo of their most recent Japanese installation.

EVA VLASAKOVA & PAVEL JEZEK

    Although also husband and wife, the work of Eva Vlasakova and Pavel Jezek is completely different. Vlasakova describes her work: "my figures and animals are not realistic, they are part of a fantasy life. I don't want to make my pieces too beautiful, polished and precious - I like to show that glass was cast from a model, that first it was sculpted by my hands and fingers and I tried to put soul into it."

    Jezek's work is strikingly different, formidable despite its clean and simple appearance. According to Jezek: "what bothers him about glass is an elegance so excessive as to become a kind of superficiality, a shine and luster which drowns out the idea behind the work." Jezek is able to temper this excessive beauty in his massive but elegant pieces.

ZDENEK LHOTSKY

Although he is the director of the Pelechov studio, Lhotsky's main emphasis is still his own creative expression. He has led a fascinating fight against complacency both in himself and in others since before the end of Communism. While still a student under Libensky, he and six other artists created a group called "The Stubborn." At a time when it was still dangerous, they were committed to freedom of expression and developed a new artistic concept that radically changed the situation of fine arts here.

Most interesting to me is how both his business and art integrate his drive for progress and modernity with his desire to preserve a dying craft. In his own words, he is seeking sources of fire and wind to sweep through Czech glass art and design since this is the only way to save what remains. An example of this integration is his website which he runs from a small town in the Czech countryside: http://www.lhotsky.com. This spring he has a show at the Czech Center in New York.

Dan Hanzlik and Pavel Mrkus

    Dan Hanzlik and Pavel Mrkus are two artists who graduated from the Applied Arts Academy in 1995. They are of the emerging generation of conceptualists. They identify themselves with post-modernists like Jiri Cernicky, not other glass artists.

    For Hanzlik every material is encompassed by and saturated with his concept. "When I use glass, it is not just because it is a beautiful material. I use the specific optical qualities of this material. I make light installations and kinetic installations." Hanzlik uses prisms to break light into it's component colors, thus he is able to work with true or pure color.

    Similarly, Mrkus uses glass when he want to work with light. "To get a sense or feeling of light. In large installations, I make some small part of it in glass to make it feel more intimate." Mrkus comments about US glass artists "they work a bit different from me. They use color…. for me it's not so free I always have to have some exact meaning in using a color. They are nice things, nice to look at and well done, but they do not have meaning."

    Karen LaMonte, Deborah Czeresko and Tina Aufiero are artists living in New York. They are over 25 and under 40, they work with glass and they work with ideas. In the city they live in, the streets can be rough and housing and studio space expensive; on the other hand 50 art exhibitions open each month. People say New York in the place for contemporary artists to see what is promoted as the best, and make up her own mind - which of course these women always do. Karen LaMonte, at 27 the youngest, has receives a burst of recognition for her work in the past year. She participated in Heller Gallery's "Glass America" exhibition, then had a show in the gallery's "Summer Session". Her work was in curator John Perreault's "New York Biennial of Glass" and following that with Aufiero, in "Hard Water", Perreault's two-woman show. Most of LaMonte's work this year has focused on children's toys. She began with functional, delicate, clear glass marionettes based on characters from Dante's Inferno. Although they were made for a film that was never finished, they did survive to inspire LaMonte.

     In the work that followed she left the Inferno in favor of characters from the Commedia del' Arte. They have taken the form of free standing hand puppets, which she blows in threes. A king, devil and ass are usually grouped by the technique with which they were made. A few solo kings exist outside of the threesomes ("because the crowns are so much fun to make,") as do some figures of a blindfolded character. In all their forms, the puppets are brightly colored with loose, draped-fabric-shaped bodies that might include flourishes of murrine.

     One of glass's greatest virtues is its ability to capture gesture, and gesture is LaMonte's strengths. Sometimes the puppets' bodies crumple and sag, which is at first disturbing because the glass is clearly uncontrolled. But their free-form quality is actually perfect for a puppet: the lumps become part of the puppet's expression, so a protrusion is both the hip of the evoked person and a fold of the evoked cloth.

     For LaMonte, "technique needs to be demystified." Some of the heads on her figures were slammed hot onto bodies while they sat in the annealer; this egregious rejection of the aesthetic of glass discipline apparently shocked fellow artists at Pilchuck this summer. Yet LaMonte also has enough interest in the refined skills to go to the trouble of using murrine and cane. "People are so enthralled with technique that they lose sight of their ideas. Technique is a tool, like the color blue. You can't sit around mixing blue your whole life - the point is to put it on something. Ideas and technique are like two feet walking, one can't get ahead of the other." She likes to work in a "loose and fun" way, then add technical challenges. "It makes you focus, to try something that is a little beyond your grasp." If one were to look for discipline in LaMonte, it might be found in her blowing, but would definitely found in her research. She has been studying puppets and toys for several years, and has been reading developmental psychology on children's toy culture. She found that children's toys are often a "bridge between imagination and reality, where what's possible is tested," and that their world of toys is reflective of the adult world. Other inquiries took her to the monthly meeting of a puppeteer's society, where she expected, but did not find, a smorgasbord of creativity.

     As a personal interest, she has been studying at the Jung Foundation in New York, where one is taught to "practice" in coming to understand one's self. LaMonte experienced an epiphany when that concept merged with the consistent practice needed for glassblowing. Other parallels in the study of Freud's idea of a therapists "evenly suspended attention," which is engaged but not reflexive. "When I watch glassblowers, I see them working in that frame of mind," she says. While researching, she became interested in found and folk art toys, and made a version of her hand puppets from a green wine bottle. This and previous experiments with found bottles moved her to try tiny clothing made from brown and green bottle glass. The resulting garments, on a scaled-own clothesline, are full of life and grace - they succeed because of their poetic idea is perfectly matched to glass's natural gesture…

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." (Einstein, Ideas and Opinions; New York: Crown, 1954; p. 11)

I have been exploring the relationship between the body and the spirit, the mundane and the fantastic. There is a difference between being alive and living - everyone is alive, but living involves imagination and a sense of wonder. In my work, I try to encourage fantasy.

My work is primarily figurative but not in the traditional sense. I use images of puppets, marionettes, and automatons to suggest animated yet vacant bodies. My cast and blown glass clothes are variations of this theme. These pieces are points of departure from the mundane world. Everyday clothes represented in glass, familiar objects in an unfamiliar state. The characteristics of glass, fragile, precious, and invisible, redefine the object. I am trying to awaken the ability to see the marvelous in the mundane.

     Als ganz und gar liebenswerte Kobolde erschienen ihre 1994 vor dem Ofen geformten Puppen. Frech präsentierte sie wenig später Unterwäsche in Form von mundgeblasenem Glas aufgereiht auf einer Wäscheleine. Danach arbeitete sie Kinderspielzeug in der Technik des Glasgusss. In diesem Jahr stellte Karen LaMonte ihre großformatigen Glasplastiken und -reliefs in der Nancy Hoffmann Galerie, New York, und auf der SOFA in Chicago aus.

     Karen LaMonte, Jahrgang 1967, hat in jungen Jahren eine für Künstler beispielhafte Karriere gemacht. Als technische Assistentin bei Urban Glass, Brooklyn, befasste sie sich unter anderem mit dem Bau von Glasöfen, später übernahm sie dort die Kursleitung für Glasblasen, Ofenformung und Fusing. 1995 unterrichtete sie an der Parson School of Design, New York, und gehörte zum Sommer-Team an der Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle. Sie war Mitbegründerin der "UrbanGlass All Stars", eines Teams von Glasbläserinnen. Bis 1997 leitete sie die Ausbildung bei UrbanGlass, Brookly und übernahm in den Jahren 1996/97 einen Workshop an der Engelholm Hojskole in Dänemark.

     So viel praktische Erfahrung gepaart mit Reiselust und Neugier führte die Künstlerin mehrfach nach Europa und zu einem zweieinhalb Jahre währenden Aufenthalt in Tschechien. Dort - wo sonst auf der Welt? - konnte sie ihre lebensgroßen Glasarbeiten ausführen, welche jüngst für Aufsehen sorgten. Im Studio von Zdenek Lhotský, Pelechov, welches in den 50er Jahren von Jaroslavá Brychtová gegründet wurde und wo zahlreiche ihrer und Libenskýs Arbeiten entstanden, fand LaMonte kompetente Partner für ihr ehrgeiziges Projekt: "Es gibt dort keine jungen Arbeiter und der jüngste ist über 50...Die Fähigkeiten dieser Handwerker, entwickelt in den letzten 30 Jahren, werden in keiner Lehranstalt für Glas vermittelt und werden verloren gehen."

     Karen LaMontes lebensgroße Figuren und Reliefs bestechen durch ihre makellose und detailreiche Oberfläche. Ausdrucksträger sind die naturalistischen Linien des Faltenwurfs, welche wie ein zufälliger gefrorener Moment einer lebendigen Aktion wirken. Anders als bei den Kostümen von Patula Berm (vgl. GLASHAUS 3/2000, S. 10f.) sucht LaMonte nicht die Bühne, nicht den Beifall der Zuschauer, sondern die Betrachtung durch den einzelnen, die Kontemplation.

    "Meine Arbeit ist vor allem figürlich, aber nicht im traditionellen Sinn. Die Gestalt existiert in meinem Werk nur als Anspielung. Ich zeige mit meinen Kleidern aus Glas lebendige und dennoch abwesende Menschen, menschliche Gestalten ohne einen menschlichen Körper.

    Kleidung deckt zu und deckt auf. Sie ist Panzer und sie ist Tracht, ist Federkleid und Tarnung. Kleidung trennt die Bereiche Öffentlich und Privat. Übertragen in Glas wird das Kleid zu einem Fenster nach innen, wo der Abdruck des Menschen zurück bleibt. Durch die schützende äußere Schale bekommt man eine Ahnung von der flüchtigen inneren Form.

    Eine Erfahrung von Verletzlichkeit entsteht durch die Reinheit, Offenheit und das Durchscheinende des Glases und steht im Widerspruch zur Unveränderlichkeit des Materials. Der erste Eindruck ist Dauerhaftigkeit und das letzte Gefühl ist das der Abwesenheit. Beim Hinschauen verwandelt sich Massivität in Flüchtigkeit. Trotz seiner außerordentlichen physischen Härte bleibt das Glas zerbrechlich, sein Verlust endgültig. Es existiert in einem menschlichen Zustand."

    In 1994, her puppets and marionettes shaped in front of the kiln appeared as utterly likeable goblins. Later, she cheekily presented underwear formed of blown glass lined up on the washing line. Thereafter, she worked on toys using the cast glass technique. This year, Karen LaMonte exhibited her large glass sculptures and reliefs in the New York Nancy Hoffmann Gallery, Heller Gallery and at SOFA in New York and Chicago.

    Born in 1967, Karen LaMonte had, in her youth, created an exemplary artistic career. As technical assistant at Urban Glass in Brooklyn, she preoccupied herself amongst other things, with the construction of glass kilns. Later, she took over the course leadership for glass blowing, kiln design, and fusing. In 1995, she taught at Parsons School of Design in New York and was part of the summer team at the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle. She was a co-founder of the "UrbanGlass All Stars," an all women glass blowing team. Until 1997, she headed the training at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and in 1996/7 taught a workshop at the Engelholm High School in Denmark.

    So much practical experience, coupled with the love of travel and curiosity, led the artist often to Europe and to a two-and-a-half year stay in the Czech Republic, which stated with a year on a Fulbright grant. There - where else in the world - she was able to carry out her life size glass works which have recently created a sensation. In the studio of Zdenek Lhotský in Pelechov, which had been founded in the 50's by Jaroslavá Brychtová and where many of her and Libensky's works have been created, LaMonte found competent partners for her ambitious project: "There are no young mold makers in the factory and the youngest is over 50... The skills these craftsmen have developed over the past 30 years are not taught in any academic glass program and could be lost."

    Karen LaMonte's life-size figures and reliefs are engaging due to their flawlessness and richly detailed surface. The expressions are carried by the natural lines of the drapes which have the effect of an accidentally frozen moment in time. Unlike the dresses by Patula Berm (see GLASHAUS 3/2000, pp 10ff), LaMonte doesn't look for the stage, the audience's applause, rather self-reflection, contemplation.

    "My work is primarily figurative, but not in the traditional sense since the figure is only alluded to. I create clothing in glass to represent animated yet absent beings, a human form without a human body.

    Clothing both protects and projects. It is armour and costume, plumage and camouflage. Clothing separates public from private space. Rendered in glass, clothing becomes a window to the interior, where the impression of the human remains. One can glimpse the ephemeral inner form through the protective outer shell.

    An experience of vulnerability is created by the purity, openness, and translucency of the glass, yet it is contradicted by the immutability of the material. The first impression is one of permanence, and the final sentiment is one of absence. What starts as massive is transformed into ephemera through the process of looking. Despite its outstanding physical strength glass remains fragile, its loss is inevitable. It exists in a human state."

    To see more of Ms. LaMonte's recent work, visit her web site www.karenlamonte.com. You can also see her work in person at Sofa Chicago, November 2-5, and at Heller Gallery in April.

Heller's "Glass America" is always a mixed bag, but then American glass is, too. Each January the Heller brothers present a large group show in their Soho gallery. …

A totally different approach to the figure was Karen LaMonte's Italiante "puppets." Blown using Venetian decorative techniques and recalling glass figurines made for the tourist crowd, the best designed by Bianconi in the 1950s, LaMonte's figures have a crude exuberance that is appealing. With plenty of glass training from the Rhode Island School of Design; Parson School of Design classes taught at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop; Pilchuck and Penland summer schools, this stance is a deliberate aesthetic choice.