M.Horvathová:Metamorphoses of Glass

The story of modern Slovak glass art began in mid-1960s and in relatively short period of the last thirty years it has found recognition not only abroad but also - and, indeed, above all - abroad. If this is partly result of a tradition in glassmaking passed on over many generations, no small credit is also due to a happy succession of impolsing individuals and brilliant teachers whose own creative spirit and ability to give ot themselves influenced the bith and later formation of modern Slovak glass as we know it today. The scale of expressive  means and formal metamorphoses of glass has been in recent years taken on exceptional breadth and oscillates not only between applied or decorative work and design, but with ever greater frequency makes incursions into the sphere of non-applied sculpture, to say nothing of interdisciplinary ventures.

Today´s glass art, resting on an understanding of glass as a distinct sculptural material with its own unique qualities, has undergone its own developement, directed initially towards perfection of cutting techniques and the celebration of the pure transparency of the material, imprisoned in precise geometric shapes. The expansion of technological procedures, but above all the preference extended to expressive qualities over perfection of form, has in the last two decades opened up an unlimited range of new possibilities. At present this is beginning to include /thanks mostly to the youngest artists/ forays into conceptualist domains - into object, installation and enviroment.

The retreat from predominantly rational to the intuitive and emotional has brought not only liberation of form and a bold, painterly, application of colour, but also the exploatation of the regular and the random inthe play structures, in the internal composition, in the effects of magic and light of the material employed. The originally pure medium of glass acquires a new character, perhaps less exalted, but for that all the more human. In a daring flirtation with unconventional materials of often opposing nature whose rough structure produces the unexpected contrast, it is also extending the range of its artistic statement. The developement, then, is something of a completed circle, from the cold and lambent material whose distant origins lie in coarse sand and the all-powerful flame, via the celebration of perfection and precise beauty, again to the mysterious and magic power which recalls those pristine robust forms.

METAMORPHOSES OF GLASS presents work of nine members of the middle and younger generations of the artists. Although they are united by a common endeavour to find a new form of expression, their programmes are quite distinct and marked by their own individual developement. In recent years Juraj STEINHUBEL´s work has envinced above all an interest in the figure. Alongside classic procedures he makes increasingly more frequent use of techniques of mould-melting with surface treatment, selective sandblasting, frosting and gluing and in this way reveals the association of the internal structure of the material with the external world of appearances.

Lubomir FERKO also draws in his sculptures on the play of light and effects of internal structures, on the contrast of the pure glass and intrussions of various other materials. Many of his works in glass communicate directly with his non-applied sculptural work and in emotive vein proliferate its intellectual statement. In his glass sculptures and objects Michal GAVULA exploits above all the advantages of the sheet glass, from which he composes now strictly geometric, now emotionally liberated architectural structures, with frequent use of effects offered metalic elements. Drahomir PRIHEL draws on classic foundation in the form of further developements in cut-glass techniques and aesthetics of "pure" glass. His cathedrals and sailing-ships combine the rationality of geometry and poetics of the mysterious world of pure lambert material and transparent, affectingly coloured structures. An artist working mostly with stained glass, Ladislav ČERBA, combines in small-scale work the techniques of mould-melted and blown glass, exploiting the provocative contrast of masses of intense colour with minimal modelling and subtly executed transparent detail. Marta MLICHOVÁ, similarly, concentrates mostly on interior features and design. Her creations, derived from natural forms and melted into a wire mould bear the characteristics of the material used. The rationally thought-out spatial structures of Martin MASAROVIČ draw on the affecting contast of interacting masses of glass, structural and folded, with traces of expressive modelling. The polarity of the internal optics of mould-melted glass, with minimal working of surface, and coarse quality of metal create an unusual tension in the work of Ivica MARKOVIČOVÁ. Many of her creations with a clearly formulated function venture from the sphere of design into the reaches of non-applied work and object. Pavol MACHO´s work is also characterised by a period of monochrome works-merked used of colour culminating in a series of wall objects displaying an affinity with the aesthetics and philosophy of Medieval stained glass windows.