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Josiah McElheny (1966, Boston) is an artist and sculptor, primarily known for his work with glass blowing and assemblagesofglass and mirrored glassed objects (see Glass art). He is a 2006 recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program. He lives and works in New York City.
Josiah McElheny
| |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 (1966)[1] |
| Education | Rhode Island School of Design |
| Known for | Sculpture, Assemblage |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellows Program |
McElheny grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts.[citation needed] McElheny went on to receive his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1988.[2] As part of that program, he trained under master glassblower Ronald Wilkins.[3] After graduating, he was an apprentice to master glassblowers Jan-Erik Ritzman, Sven-Ake Caarlson and Lino Tagliapietra.[1]
In earlier works McElheny played with notions of history and fiction.[4] Examples of this are works that recreate Renaissance glass objects pictured in Renaissance paintings[5] and modern (but lost) glass objects from documentary photographs (such as works by Adolf Loos).[6] He draws from a range of disciplines like architecture, physics, and literature, among others, and he works in a variety of media.[7]
McElheny has mentioned the influence of the writings of Jorge Luis Borges in his work.[8] His work has also been influenced by the work of the American abstract artist Donald Judd.[9]
McElheny has also expressed interest in glassblowing as part of an oral tradition handed down generation to generation.[citation needed] He has used the infinity mirror visual effect in his explorations of apparently infinite space. His work also sometimes deals with issues of museological displays.[10]
One of the artist's ongoing projects is "An End to Modernity" (2005), commissioned by the Wexner Center for the ArtsatOhio State University. The piece is a twelve-foot-wide by ten-foot-high chandelier of chrome and transparent glass modeled on the 1960s Lobmeyr design for the chandeliers found in Lincoln Center, and evoking as well the Big Bang theory.[11] "The End of the Dark Ages," again inspired by the Metropolitan Opera House chandeliers and informed by logarithmic equations devised by the cosmologist David H. Weinberg[12] was shown in New York City in 2008. Later that year, the series culminated in a massive installation titled "Island Universe" at White Cube in London[13] and in Madrid.[14] In 2019 the installation was exhibited at Stanford University's Cantor Center for the Arts.[15]