Josiah McElheny (1966, Boston) is an

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, primarily known for his work with

glass blowing Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer''. A '' lampworke ...

and assemblages of

glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...

and

mirror A mirror or looking glass is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the im ...

ed glassed objects (see

Glass art Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including gla ...

). He is a 2006 recipient of the

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

. He lives and works in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Early life and education

McElheny grew up in

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and ...

. McElheny went on to receive his BFA from the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

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 Lino Tagliapietra (born 1934) is an Italian glass artist originally from Venice, who has also worked extensively in the United States. As a teacher and mentor, he has played a key role in the international exchange of glassblowing processes and te ...

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 painting Renaissance art (1350 – 1620 AD) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which o ...

s and modern (but lost) glass objects from documentary photographs (such as works by

Adolf Loos Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to modernism and a widely- ...

). 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 Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

in his work. His work has also been influenced by the work of the American abstract artist

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

. McElheny has also expressed interest in glassblowing as part of an

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...

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 Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

. 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 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

, and evoking as well the

Big Bang theory The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...

. "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 White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centr ...

in London and in Madrid. In 2019 the installation was exhibited at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

'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 The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

, 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 Public Art Fund is an independent, non-profit arts organization founded in 1977 by Doris C. Freedman. The organization presents contemporary art in New York City's public spaces through a series of highly visible artists' projects, new commissions, ...

, New York * 2001 – ''Metal Party,''

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, nati ...

, 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,''

, 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,''

, 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 The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...

, Stanford * 2019 – ''Observations at Night,''

James Cohan Gallery James Cohan is a contemporary art gallery in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. History The gallery had a branch in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It opened another in the former French Concession of Shanghai in 20 ...

, New York * 2021 – ''Libraries,''

, New York

Awards

* 1993 – Betty Bowen Special Recognition Award,

, Seattle, Washington * 1995 – Award Winner, 1995 Biennial Competition of

The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate c ...

, New York, New York * 1998 – Bagley Wright Fund Award, Seattle, Washington * 2000 – The 15th Rakow Commission,

Corning Museum of Glass The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...

Corning, New York Corning is a city in Steuben County, New York, United States, on the Chemung River. The population was 10,551 at the 2020 census. It is named for Erastus Corning, an Albany financier and railroad executive who was an investor in the company t ...

* 2005 – Artist-in-Residence Award, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio * 2006 –

Permanent collections

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

, Buffalo *

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbu ...

, Pittsburgh *

Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College Founded in 1990, the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition and research center dedicated to the study of art and exhibition practices from the 1960s to the present. The Center initiated its graduate program in 1994 ...

, Annandale-on-Hudson *Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago di Compostela *

Chrysler Museum of Art The Chrysler Museum of Art is an art museum on the border between downtown and the Ghent district of Norfolk, Virginia. The museum was founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. In 1971, automotive heir, Walter P. Chrysler Jr. ...

, Norfolk *

Columbus Museum of Art The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collect ...

, Columbus *

, Corning *

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

, Dallas *

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

, Detroit *

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It ...

, Indianapolis * Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston *

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

, Los Angeles *

Memorial Art Gallery The Memorial Art Gallery is the civic art museum of Rochester, New York. Founded in 1913, it is part of the University of Rochester and occupies the southern half of the University's former Prince Street campus. It is the focal point of fine arts ...

, Rochester *

Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...

, Milwaukee * Moderna Museet, Stockholm * Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica *

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...

, Madrid *

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one o ...

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

, Phoenix *

Rhode Island School of Design Museum The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple build ...

, Providence * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara *

, Seattle *

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

, London *

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, New York

Books

* ''Josiah McElheny: A Prism.'' Skira Rizzoli International, 2010. . * ''The Light Club: On Paul Scheerbart's 'The Light Club of Batavia'.''

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style' ...

, 2010. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McElheny, Josiah American sculptors Minimalist artists 1966 births Living people MacArthur Fellows American glass artists Rhode Island School of Design alumni Recipients of the Rakow Commission People from Brookline, Massachusetts