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FRANTIŠEK VÍZNER An Exhibition of New Sculpture and Drawings October 23 – December 20, 2008 New York - Barry Friedman Ltd. is pleased to present a solo exhibition of more than 25 new works by the internationally acclaimed Czech sculptor František Vízner. The exhibition will be on view from October 23 through December 19 and will run concurrently with a retrospective exhibition of the artist’s work at the Corning Museum of Glass (Masters of Studio Glass: Frantisek Vízner: November 8, 2008 – March 22, 2009). František Vízner’s elegant minimalist glass sculptures are a distillation of form and color. Devoid of function and with no decorative intent, his classical monochromatic forms -- bowls, plates, columns and cubic objects -- celebrate the essential qualities of glass and explore the relationship between material, form, and light.
Working alone without the aid of assistants, Vízner sculpts his fundamental and intelligent glass forms with a grindstone. This process allows light to softly penetrate each piece accentuating the subtle gradation of color that flows throughout. His deep respect for the diaphanous and malleable nature of glass is purely and beautifully conveyed. The artist explains, “My duty as an artist is to liberate the shapes from the accidental surpluses and to create my own concept of the shapes in connection with the material I use. The use of a grindstone allows me to experiment with the massive, bold glass objects and the interaction between their inner space and the smoothly structured surface. I keep pushing the boundaries of ‘the vessel’; the bowl often becomes rectangular; the vase more horizontal; the plate more plastic.”
With a confident use of bright colors, the artist is now exploring the qualities of opaque glass in densely vibrant colors. Highly polished and without translucency, these works evoke high-tech plastics as well as traditional Japanese lacquer – a combination of weight and whimsy. “While absolutely minimal, they are at once playful, luxurious and restrained.” In a feature article in Glass Magazine, curator and critic William Warmus states, “Among twentieth century artists, František Vízner has practically defined the meaning of Classicism as it applies to work in glass, a medium much prone to exaggeration and Baroque affectation. Beginning in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and continuing to the present moment, he has worked to create a series of vessels that are among the most perfect objects ever made by human hands.” František Vízner’s work is represented in numerous public and private collections including the Bellerive Museum, Zurich; The Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia; Corning Museum of Glass, New York; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf; Kunstsammlungen der Veste, Coburg; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Museum of Applied Art and Craft, Prague; National Gallery, Prague; The National Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; National Museum, Stockholm; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Victoria and Albert Museum, London. František Vízner was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1936. From 1951–53, he attended the Primary School of Glassmaking in Nový Bor, where he received an apprenticeship in the area of glass painting. He attended the Technical College of Glassmaking in Železný Brod and studied under Prof. J. Černý in the studio of melted sculpture. From 1956-62, Vízner attended the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague where he studied under Prof. K. Štipl and lecturer V. Plátek in the studio of glass and glyptics. He finished with a dissertation in the area of pressed glass. From 1962-1967, Vízner was a designer at Sklo-union glassworks, Teplice (Bohemia) in the area of pressed glass. During the next ten years, he was a designer at Škrdlovice glassworks in the area of melted glass. During that period, he began shaping glass with a grindstone and collaborating with architects on public installations such as the 1981 wall installation for the Prague underground. Vízner currently resides in the Czech Republic.
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