Author Description

Unconventional as always. Dale Chihuly's career survey at the Seattle Art Museum. "Dale Chihuly: Installations 1964-1992, was not a retrospective. Rather than simpIy gathering individual works to trace the artist's development, Chihuly was invited to create a series of gallery-sized Installations. The intent was to explore the relationship of object to space that has intrigued Chihuly since his undergraduate days as an interior-design student at the University of Washington. Likewise, Dale Chihuly: Installations 1964-1992 is not a conventional exhibition catalog. In curator Patterson Sims's essay, "Scuola dI Chihuly: Venezia and Seattle, " he chronicles the artist's life and discusses the various series, as well as the permanent and temporary installations, that Chihuly has created since 1964, Like the exhibition. Sims examines everything from the earliest environmental works -- hangings combining fiber and glass that Chihuly had done in his undergraduate weaving class -- to the stage sets forthe Seattle Opera's 1993 z production of Pelleas et Mellsande. This book, with Its informative commentary on the stages of the artist's development and its archival photographs, is an essential part of the Chihuly bibliography.