Glass art shows creativity of modern Japan

It's rare to see a contemporary glass art exhibition in Shanghai, so "iGlass 2014 — Japanese Contemporary Glass Art," currently running at Levant Art, is definitely music to the ear of those who are enamored with this art form.

Following previous exhibitions in Europe and the United States where glass art originated and has received the best development, "iGlass 2014" introduces the art from a Japanese perspective, featuring nearly 30 works created by 11 Japanese artists of different ages, art concepts, shapes and technologies.

The highlight is a glass sculpture created by Yoshiaki Kojiro. On first sight, many visitors would mistake it for a bunch of foam plastic.

"My work is to present a product that is formed by the interaction of glass, tiny bubbles, heat and gravity," Kojiro says. "It is my greatest interest to extract certain structure from this process in the most stripped-down way, and through my works I hope to emphasize suggestion rather than description."

The artist says he first combined glass powder with the foaming agents (calcium carbonate) in a fire-proof plaster mold. Then he fired it for casting in an electric kiln, and the mold was filled with foamed glass gradually, like baking bread.

"His work reminds me of the beauty of Japanese stone gardens. Hard to encompass — and even harder to describe," says Karen Zheng, organizer of the exhibition. "You have to see it and feel it. His work is very authentic, well-defined, balanced. It has great power of expression, and yet it's sober and pure as can be."

Another spotlight of the exhibition is the glass sculpture created by Toshio Iezumi. Laminated sheets of glass — cut, ground and polished — are the basic elements of his work.

Iezumi, well aware of the optical qualities of glass, uses a reflective coating to emphasize the depth inside the object. With utmost precision, he transmits light so that with each move the viewer makes he will experience another sculpture.