NEW YORK.- Barry Friedman Ltd. will inaugurate its new Chelsea gallery with an exhibition of sculptural works in glass by Toots Zynsky on view September 19 through November 10, 2007. The exhibition will feature a striking new body of work that the artist has created during the last two years. An opening reception will be held on September 19 at Barry Friedman, Ltd., located at 515 W. 26th Street.
With Shadows, Zynsky presents her boldest and most compelling works to date. Moving in a new direction, Zynsky continues the inventiveness for which she is known, once again pushing the scale to achieve more complex, convoluted, vertical forms marked by a stark use of vibrant monochromatic color. Red emerges as a powerful theme in the show. Grounded in darkness, shadows rise giving way to intense brilliant color.
Zynsky shapes glass as if it were a fluid fabric. Stretched, twisted, and compressed abstract forms fold in on themselves, undulating and shifting as light illuminates the bold color and delicate striations within. Shadows conveys a paradoxical sense of permanence and daring impermanence.
The critic Arthur C. Danto wrote, “In an age in which the relevance of beauty to art is widely questioned, Zynsky’s work is uncompromisingly beautiful. It is however what the poet Andre Breton would have called convulsive beauty. The intensity of the adjoined color, the tactile vitality of the fluted walls, the swirling energies of shape and pattern are transformed into a luminous whole through the interaction between glass and light.”
About Toots Zynsky: Toots Zynsky grew up in Massachusetts. She received her BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. She was one of the founders of the Pilchuck Glass Center in Stanwood, Washington and The Second New York Experimental Glass Workshop, now UrbanGlass, in New York. She then lived and worked abroad for 16 years, traveling widely on four continents - returning to the US in early 1999.
In 1984, Zynsky was the first contemporary glass artist to have a piece directly commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has been the recipient of many awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, as well as The Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. She has exhibited her work and lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, Mexico, and Asia.
Zynsky’s work is represented in numerous major public and private collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan; Houston Museum of Art; Museé des Arts Décoratifs du Louvre, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of American History, Washington, DC; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and The White House Collection - now housed in the Clinton Presidential Library. This is her fifth solo exhibition at Barry Friedman Ltd.
