- Source: Josiah McElheny
Josiah McElheny (1966, Boston) is an artist and sculptor, primarily known for his work with glass blowing and assemblages of glass 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.
Early life and education
McElheny grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. McElheny went on to receive his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1988. As part of that program, he trained under master glassblower Ronald Wilkins. After graduating, he was an apprentice to master glassblowers Jan-Erik Ritzman, Sven-Ake Caarlson and Lino Tagliapietra.
Career
In earlier works McElheny played with notions of history and fiction. Examples of this are works that recreate Renaissance glass objects pictured in Renaissance paintings and modern (but lost) glass objects from documentary photographs (such as works by Adolf Loos). He draws from a range of disciplines like architecture, physics, and literature, among others, and he works in a variety of media.
McElheny has mentioned the influence of the writings of Jorge Luis Borges in his work. His work has also been influenced by the work of the American abstract artist Donald Judd.
McElheny has also expressed interest in glassblowing as part of an oral tradition handed down generation to generation. 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.
One of the artist's ongoing projects is "An End to Modernity" (2005), commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio 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. "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 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 and in Madrid. In 2019 the installation was exhibited at Stanford University's Cantor Center for the Arts.
Exhibitions
= Solo exhibitions
=1990 – Jägarens Glasmuseet (The Hunter's Glass Museum), Arnescruv, Sweden,
1993 – originals, fakes, reproductions, William Traver Gallery, Seattle
1994 – Authentic History, Robert Lehman Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
1995 – Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
1995 – Installation with Ancient Roman Glass, Ancient Mediterranean and Egypt Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle,
1995 – Donald Young Gallery, Seattle
1996 – Barbara Kraków Gallery, Boston
1997 -Non-Decorative Beautiful Objects, AC Project Room, New York
1997 – Three Alter Egos, Donald Young Gallery, Seattle
1999 – The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle
1999 – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
2000 – Christian Dior, Jorges Luis Borges, Adolf Loos, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago and Brent Sikkema, New York
2001 – Metal Party, Public Art Fund, New York
2001 – Metal Party, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
2001 – Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas
2002 – Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
2003 – Theories About Reflection, Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York
2003 – Antipodes: Josiah McElheny, White Cube, London
2004 – Total Reflective Abstraction, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
2005 – An End to Modernity, Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
2006 – Modernity 1929–1965, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
2006 – Cosmology, Design, and Landscape, Part I, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
2007 – Cosmology, Design, and Landscape, Part II, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
2007 – Projects 84: The Alpine Cathedral and the City-Crown, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
2007 – The 1st at Moderna: The Alpine Cathedral and the City-Crown, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
2008 – The Last Scattering Surface, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle and Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minnesota
2008 – Das Lichtklub von Batavia/The Light Club of Batavia, Institut im Glaspavillon, Berlin
2008 – The Light Club of Batavia, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
2008 – The End of the Dark Ages, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
2008 – Island Universe, White Cube, London
2009 – A Space for an Island Universe, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
2009 – Proposal for a Chromatic Modernism, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
2012 – Some Pictures of the Infinite, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
2016 – The Ornament Museum, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
2017 – The Crystal Land, White Cube, London
2017 – Prismatic Park, Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York
2018 – Island Universe, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston
2018 – Cosmic Love, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
2019 – Island Universe, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford
2019 – Observations at Night, James Cohan Gallery, New York
2021 – Libraries, James Cohan Gallery, New York
Awards
1993 – Betty Bowen Special Recognition Award, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
1995 – Award Winner, 1995 Biennial Competition of The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, New York
1998 – Bagley Wright Fund Award, Seattle, Washington
2000 – The 15th Rakow Commission, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York
2005 – Artist-in-Residence Award, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
2006 – MacArthur Fellows Program
Permanent collections
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago di Compostela
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle
Tate Modern, London
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Books
Josiah McElheny: A Prism. Skira Rizzoli International, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8478-3415-0.
The Light Club: On Paul Scheerbart's 'The Light Club of Batavia'. University of Chicago Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-226-51457-4.