Cigler at National Glass Centre
Rippled Surface, Václav Cigler and Michal Moty_ka, metal, water, speaker, 2008
Work by the legendary Czech glass artist Václav Cigler goes on show at Sunderland’s National Glass Centre until February next year
Václav Cigler: Light and Water as a Principle is Cigler’s first solo UK exhibition and it’s well worth the wait. It focuses on his larger scale installation work and shows that even at the age of 80 Cigler, the grand old man of Slovak glass, is still interested in coming up with new ways of using the material to explore and enhance an architectural setting.
The show opens with Luminous Axis displayed in the NGC’s forecourt and intended to act as a dramatic arrow signposting the exhibition entrance. Beautifully simple, it’s made out of what looks like two giant steel beams sandwiching a thin line of light. Inside light again takes centre stage with three new pieces, Light Field, Ground Glass and Different Landscape shown together for the first time. Another piece, Spring, shows Cigler’s continuing interest in the reflective properties of glass and water – it’s a giant stainless steel barrel full of water but with a slanted mirrored surface so reflecting endless variations of the surrounding gallery. Cigler says, ‘I make glass which does not want to become art but rather a means of viewing and watching’ and this piece shows how he uses glass to view its surroundings in a new reflected dimension.
www.nationalglasscentre.com
