Two new exhibitions recently opened up at Museum of the Southwest last week from artists Seymour Fogel and Simon Waranch.
The first exhibition is Simon Waranch’s “Life in Glass.”
The exhibit is on display until April 2.
Waranch is an innovator in the field of glass art.
A master of venetian technique, pattern work and conceptual design, the Dallas native has featured in one-person exhibitions at the National Center for Jewish Art and the Longview Museum of Fine Arts.
The “Life in Glass” exhibition is split up into three different galleries.
“The first one is more your gallery exhibition where we have Simon’s latest work from 2022,” Museum of the Southwest Curator Matt Ward said. “In this gallery, you can see glass as art. Too often, we see glass as purely decorative or utilitarian. But here, we see glass as sculpture. Simon is an artist who is bringing his art to life in a medium that happens to be glass.”
Ward talked about the many different techniques that Waranch uses.
“We’re seeing him take traditional techniques like the niche and reticello technique,” Ward said. “He’s experimented with them and turned them into fanciful, gestural form.”
Reticello refers to the vector design that the artist makes from many strips of cane which is the glass material.
“Inside each vector, he makes a bubble that’s made through specific heat. … It’s this progression of traditional technique into contemporary concept, moving gestural form. In this gallery, that’s what we’re seeing. It’s his latest work and where he’s advancing the medium of glass.”
The second gallery is where the exhibition goes from an aesthetic focus to contemporary with a gallery filled with 433 mirrored “skittles” as Simon calls them.
“It’s an immersive, 360 degree experience,” Ward said. “Here, we can see movement of the entire installation. There are areas that are more concentrated than others. You’ll pick up unique patterns and unique designs. Everyone will take something different from this room. It’s an abstract installation but there’s a narrative inherent in it. It’s very interpretive.”
The third gallery focuses more on the process.
“With glass art, there’s not a ton that’s known about it in general,” Ward said. “This gallery, we see some of the raw materials that go into making the product.”
This exhibition is Waranch’s largest solo show to date.
“What is the most immediately eye-catching is the second room, the ‘skittle room’ because it’s very immersive,” Ward said. ”That might be because of the entry point but it also delves into how he can make this medium and transform glass into so many different, not just shapes and forms, but emotions and feelings. The art on display stands out the most.”
The second exhibition is from a key artist in the Texas modernism movement Seymour Fogel titled “Synthesis.”
Fogel lived from 1911-1984.
He moved to Austin in 1946 where he accepted a position at the University of Texas at Austin.
His impact was immediate as Fogel produced Texas’ first abstract murals for the likes of the American National Bank, UT and the Houston Petroleum Club.
“He is Texas’ leading modernist,” Ward said. “He was one of the first wholly abstract artists in Texas to achieve acclaim. He painted some of the first abstract murals in the state of Texas. He trained under Diego Rivera. … Fogel, when he trained under Rivera, he worked with a social-realist style which is more of a comment on social issues. We see some of those works.”
During his lifetime, Fogel exhibited venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art.
Today, his work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the National Archives of American art, among others.
However, Fogel is often a forgotten artist in Texas art history.
“For me, this exhibition is bringing Fogel as an important figure of Texas art history to the public,” Ward said. “Texas modernism has not been documented as much as other aspects of our history in general. The regionalists have gotten the most attention but there was a strong modernist movement and Fogel was the leader of that. He helped shape that. He was highly influential on architecture as well. For me, bringing Fogel and his contribution to the state is the big ticket here. His work is so stylistically varied. We have his work from the 30s to the 70s.”
The exhibition is open until April 23.
For more information about Museum of the Southwest or both exhibitions, go to tinyurl.com/b8c8pars.
If you go
- What: “Past Particles: Simon Waranch’s Life in Glass.”
- Where: Museum of the Southwest.
- When: Open now-April 2.
If you go
- What: “Synthesis.”
- Where: Museum of the Southwest.
- When: Open now-April 23.
