The glass ceiling: has the UN's International Year of Glass 2022 cut through?

2022 is the International Year of Glass (IYOG), a world-wide celebration of the medium organised by the United Nations – but many of those in the craft world would be forgiven for not knowing it. Because of the relative scale and economic value of the sectors involved, the IYOG’s focus was inevitable on industry rather than artists and artisans. Thanks to this, along with various accidents of timing, the International Year has made less of an impact, at least on the general public, than art glass lovers might have hoped. However, there are still high points to the year – not least the exhibitions and activities planned in the historic glass hubs of Venice and Stourbridge.

Image above: Strange Creatures by Julie Light. Photo by Robyn Manning

IYOG was launched in the Palace of Nations, Geneva, in February this year. It was led by Alicia Durán, a physicist and research professor at the Institute of Ceramics and Glass, Madrid, and John Parker, emeritus professor of glass science and engineering at Sheffield University. The country sponsoring the UN resolution was Spain, with China as co-sponsor: these days, Durán says, the Chinese ‘have 55% of all the float glass furnaces on the planet’ and are leaders in optical fibre, as well as in glass display screens. For her, glass ‘the material of the future’, which will be needed ‘to build a sustainable planet’ – soda lime glass, for example, widely used in bottles and other packaging, can be recycled without wastage or loss of quality and, as such, can have a vital place in the ‘circular economy’.

Unsurprisingly, given these origins, the emphasis in the IYOG’s opening ceremony was primarily on glass as an industry, from its origins 3,500 years ago up to the 21st century. Parker stresses the versatility of glass, from use in mirrors and perfume bottles to medicine phials and satellites. On paper, at least, the organisers have created a genuinely international movement, endorsed by over 2,100 institutions from 90 countries.

Glass as an art and craft has had its place: the event schedule on the IYOG website includes several exhibitions and demonstrations. Yet glass art sits uneasily with the IYOG’s utopian interest in ‘how glass can aid the development of more just and sustainable societies’. After all, glass artworks use a lot of energy, they are not affordable for most people, their colours often require rare earth minerals, and recycled glass presents technical challenges for artists. ‘Yes, there are issues,’ says Parker. However, he is optimistic that the IYOG will help to find new solutions: ‘Artists, technologists, scientists are imaginative, and this kind of event is stimulating that imagination.’ In its chapter on contemporary glass art, the IYOG booklet, Welcome to the Glass Age, focuses on artists who use recycled glass, such as Juli Bolaños-Durman or Hannah Gibson, or who explore the UN’s favoured themes, such as sustainability, inclusivity or other forms of ‘craft-activism’.

In north America, where the studio glass movement originated, the impact of the IYOG has been ‘somewhat muted’, according to Andrew Page, editor of Glass Quarterly. He notes that ‘the official proclamation was delayed by the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, and organisers were unable to meet in person, all of which limited fundraising that might have helped support higher-profile exhibitions and events.’ Nevertheless, he said, glass was celebrated by ‘the volunteer efforts of individuals and institutions’.

In Europe, the IYOG has offered a label for publicity and an impetus for expansion for many exhibitions [EP1] and events in art glass, including two of the most important events on the sector’s calendar. The International Festival of Glass at Stourbridge added a Glass Bead Biennale to the British Glass Biennale (26 August – 1 October 2022). Also included in the festival is an appropriately international exhibition, Expanding Horizons, on glass art from the Far East.

Meanwhile Venice Glass Week, an annual celebration that began in 2017 with a primary focus on Muranese glass, has linked up with the Vision Milan Glass Week, dedicated to industrial glass and design, to make a joint festival called the ‘Italian Glass Weeks’ (10-18 September in Milan, and 17-25 September in Venice). The latter’s website emphasises that it is ‘part of the official IYOG programme’ and that it ‘aims to be the most important European event dedicated to glass in 2022’. It is as yet unclear whether the joint arrangement will continue after 2022.

In the UK, the mainstream press seems largely to have ignored the International Year of Glass, a few passing mentions aside. In the view of Will Farmer, glass expert on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow and a local auctioneer, the IYOG has been one ingredient in the ‘perfect storm’ of celebrations in the Stourbridge festival, including the opening of its new Glass Museum and the 25th anniversary of the Contemporary Glass Society.

In Britain, Murano and elsewhere, glass art is struggling for many reasons, and has still not truly achieved the status of a fine art. It seems unlikely that the UN’s focus on the industrial applications of the material will change this. On the other hand, the advances in glass technology highlighted this year could eventually lead to greater possibilities for artists. In any case, the IYOG has probably increased international collaboration, and provided the glass art community with a convenient hook on which to hang a post-pandemic flurry of events.

Still to come in 2022

With four months of the International Year of Glass remaining, here’s a few stand-out exhibitions still to come at Stourbridge and Venice. For more events in Britain and around the world, see the IYOG website for details.

The British Glass Biennale

The exhibition of finalists in the biennale showcases a wide range of talents, from established names like Colin Reid and Sally Fawkes, up-and-coming artists such as Theo Brooks and Nina Casson McGarva and promising students like Anthony Amoako-Attah and Wai Yan Choi.

Until 1 October at Glasshouse Arts and Heritage Centre, The Glasshouse, Stourbridge

Georgia Redpath: Nature | Architecture

This solo exhibition puts work by Georgia Redpath, a Lincolnshire artist based at Stourbridge’s Ruskin Glass Centre, in the spotlight. Redpath’s cast-glass sculptures explore the geometrical formulas underlying nature’s designs, and are fabricated using casts taken from cardboard collages.

12 November – 26 March 2023, Stourbridge Glass Museum

Expanding Horizons: Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan

Some of the finest glass on display in Stourbridge at the moment comes from the Far East. See work by renowned artists such South Korea’s Joon Yong Kim and Japan’s Hiroshi Yamano in this showcase merging ancient craft traditions with the recent resurgence of glass as a medium.

Until 1 October at Glasshouse Arts and Heritage Centre, The Glasshouse, Stourbridge

Vessels of Memory: Glass Ships in Bottles

Ayako Tani, a Japanese glass artist and researcher based in Sunderland, has built up a collection of glass ships in bottles that charts the history of this unexpectedly popular craft. These pieces were crafted by scientific glassblowers, who specialised in lampworking borosilicate glass laboratory apparatus. When the UK outsourced production in the 1970s, these craftspeople turned to making glass ships in bottles instead.

Until 1 October at Glasshouse Arts and Heritage Centre, The Glasshouse, Stourbridge

‘La Commedia Umana – Memento Mori’ by Ai Weiwei

The centrepiece of Ai Weiwei’s latest solo exhibition is a chandelier-like hanging sculpture in opaque black glass full of skulls and bones. This was made by maestri at Berengo Studio, Murano, which has established itself as a centre for fine artists to transform their ideas into glass.

Until 27 November at Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

The Italian Glass Weeks

These two exhibitions offer visitors the opportunity to see some of the best art in glass currently being produced in Italy and further afield, in two categories for established and up-and-coming artists respectively, each with a prize up for grabs.

17-25 September at Venice HUB (Palazzo Loredan) and Venice HUB Under35 (Palazzo Giustinian Lolin)

Venini: Light 1921-1985

This is the latest in a line of outstanding exhibitions from the Stanze, a 10-year project that aims to chronicle the evolution of glass in Venice in the 20th and 21st centuries. This outing explores all things Venini, the company whose designs shaped interior lighting, both public and private, in Italy and beyond.

18 September – 8 January 2023 at Stanze del Vetro, Venice