Object No. 23 (Architectural Glass Fantasies series)
Artist: Stine Bidstrup (Danish, born 1982)
Date: 2018
Dimensions:
9 3/4 × 14 1/2 × 12 1/8 in. (24.8 × 36.8 × 30.8 cm)
Medium: Mold blown glass with digitally enhanced graal technique
Classification: Glass
Credit Line: Purchased with funds given by Edith Rathbun
Object number: 2018.65
Label Text:Stine Bidstrup’s Architectural Glass Fantasies are inspired by the mountainous landscape in Bergen, Norway, as well as the theories of German writer Paul Scheerbart (1863–1915) and German architect Bruno Taut (1880–1938), who described and illustrated theoretical architectural ideas for a utopian future, including glass-constructed cities. Bidstrup uses molten glass as a means of interpreting these ideal structures, creating her own series of imaginative shapes that look like miniature cityscapes. She includes elements of intricate patterns found extensively on cut glass of the early 20th century and still produced by Libbey Glass (see an example in this case). Incorporating overlapping star shapes, Bidstrup merges the decorative and the structural in her forms, inventively fusing architectural ideas with the beauty of glass.
DescriptionIrregularly-shaped object with multiple layers of glass (Swedish graal technique), blown into waste mold; in sky-blue semi-transparent glass.
On view