WAYPOINTS Bertil Vallien Schantz Galleries contemporary glass
WAYPOINTS Bertil Vallien September 23 - October 16, 2022 Schantz USAStockbridge,GalleriesMA
Bertil Vallien - KostaBoda sand room.
Bertil Vallien is known for his exploration of dualities—past/future, interior/exterior, light/dark, life/death, hot/cold, soft/hard. In his intricately layered glass sculptures, surfaces oscillate between transparent polish and distorting grittiness (another duality) to provide multiple visual avenues of entry. Storytelling is fundamental; it begins with the form and finish of the work but develops within the glass body, characters and symbols hovering in suspended animation. Much of Vallien’s approach to construction and content does indeed reinforce a focus on dichotomy, but the work embodies a complex spectrum of elements that make it not so much a binary experience but a pluralistic story about the world we live in.
The two-headed Janus continues a theme Vallien first introduced in the late 1990s about the Roman God of transition, duality, and passageways who could simultaneously see what came before and what was yet to be. A grey and cratered face looks stonily in one direction but at the back of his head, embedded within a spectacular axe of purple glass cleaving the air, a smaller harlequined face gazes wistfully in the opposite direction. The piece is cast in a glass that contains neodymium, a rare, silvery earth metal whose color changes in certain lights from brilliant violet to almost blue. Janus is mounted on a base of azure blue stairs, stylized like undulating waves to reinforce the notion that we are in a constant state of movement and flux.
Vallien has long used glass boats, in which stories reside forever encapsulated in invisible material, as a metaphor for the journey through and beyond life. The vessels are elegantly long with pristinely clear tops and textured, obfuscated bottoms. Colored glass powder on the exteriors creates exquisite gradients from ruddy orange to cool blue, as if the boats are made from water itself reflecting the earth and sky. The title for one of his boats, Frozen Music, was inspired by an article Vallien read in which the author referred to architecture in those terms; he found the observation interesting as it pertained to his technique of freezing objects in time in glass. Might the viewer look at the person in this boat as a singer? Is there evidence of this in the hieroglyphs and accoutrements that surround him? Vallien admits there might be but leaves it entirely up to the viewer to decide.
Frozen Music, 2022 10 x 4.5 x 44"
In Spirit Why I and Spirit Why II, Vallien embeds one his favorite letters, the Y, inside the boats (he loves how the shape of the letter mandates us to choose a direction) then sounds the letter out like a question in the title (to examine our metaphysical motivations, of why we do what we do).
Water, which covers two-thirds of the earth and feels fathomless and relatively unexplored, is both a churning force and a still veneer. Fascinated by what is happening under the surface, Vallien explores the material qualities of water as it is interpreted in glass, and the metaphorical qualities of water as a symbol of the fragile skin and uncharted depths of humanity. The monochromatic sculpture entitled Blues is a triumph of multiplicity—at once a celebration of one of Vallien’s favorite colors (he says “blue eats light in a very beautiful way”), an interpretation of the places on Earth where water meets sand (the glass is literally cast in sand), and a meditation on an underlying melancholic state (a downcast mask floats within the glass).
Blues, 2022 9.5 x 6 x 5.5"
Under Surface II, 2022 9 x 6 x 5.5"
Blues is part of a series Vallien calls Under the Surface, also represented in this exhibition by the work entitled Under the Surface II. Instead of vibrant cobalt, the interior of this piece is a mottled, silvery grey, as if the vast night sky has been consumed by the earth. Gravelly gold facades contrast the shiny darkness, precious reminders of the delicate ground on which we live. Though crumbling buildings litter the coarse earth on the top of the sculpture, a disembodied light glows on saffron flecks and a bright red house offers comfort and shelter. Years ago, Vallien created a similar series of work called Area II, in which maps led archeologists to obliterated and forbidden places devastated by heat, frozen in ice, or ravaged by mankind. He called these archeologists Watchers, but they did more than merely observe the tragic consequences of natural disasters and human destruction; they were gatekeepers to a catastrophe of their own making. Now writ large, the Watchers in this exhibition (also cast in blue) are bold totemic figures. They exude the power of kings and dictators but are forever petrified and bound at the legs by red twine.
Each work of art by Bertil Vallien begins with a touchstone—whether it be a current or historical affair, religion or legend, or words and letters—that the artist then carefully considers from all sides. Each is a thoughtful layering of image, color, form, and finish that explores then transcends the innate dualities of life. They are filled with nuance and symbolism, both materially and narratively, which leaves them intriguingly open to interpretation. This open-endedness is a big part of the humanity of the work, and though it tends towards the serious there is a streak of irreverence which comes directly from the artist. There is, for instance, the uncommon spontaneity of the abstract and compelling Toro, its surface made directly in the sand with only simple tools and the artist’s hands. Does this augur a new direction for the artist, who has teased that one day he might “become a minimalist” after a career devoted to the complexity of storytelling? Perhaps in the plurality of Bertil Vallien, there is room for both.
Toro, 2022 13 x 9 x 5"
M Watcher 1, 2022 37.5 x 7 x 3.5"
M Watcher II, 2022 20.5 x 6 x 3"
Spirit Why II, 2022 6 x 25.5 x 4"
Atlantis, 2022 5.5 x 4.75 x 5.5"
Under Surface 1, 2022 7.5 x 7.5 x 7.5”
Intruder, 2022 18.5 x 19 x 4.5"
Bertil Vallien was born in 1938 in Stockholm. He was trained as a ceramist at Konstfack in Stockholm and continued his education in Mexico and Los Angeles. His career as a radical ceramic artist began in New York. After returning to Sweden, Bertil Vallien lived and worked for more than half a century with his wife Ulrica Hydman Vallien in Åfors, in the heart of Swedish Glasriket, where he still resides today. Bertil Vallien has been associated with the Kosta Boda glassworks, which is also a partner of the exhibition, since the 1960s. Bertil Vallien is represented in many leading international museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the National Museum in Stockholm, and the Chicago Art Institute and the Neue Sammlung in Munich . He has received numerous prestigious prizes and awards, including the Swedish Academy Gold Medal and the Prince Eugen Medal. In the summer of 2021, Bertil Vallien presented a highly acclaimed exhibition in the park of the royal summer residence Solliden on the Swedish island of Öland.
Atlantis (detail), 2022
Under Surface II (detail), 2022
© 2022 Schantz Galleries Stockbridge, www.schantzgalleries.comTelMassachusetts4132983044 All artwork images © Bertil Vallien Artwork Photography: Göran Örtegren Portrait Photo: Sander Copier Essay: Jeanne V. Koles Design: Kim Saul Front Cover: Janus, 2022 Back Cover: M Watcher 1(detail), 2022 This catalog illustrates a selection from more than 25 works by Bertil Vallien on exhibition at Schantz Galleries in Stockbridge. Please visit the gallery or website to see additional works. This exhibition was produced in cooperation with Kosta Boda, Sweden. KOSTA BODA SWEDEN 1742
Schantz Galleries contemporary glass
