The origins of this exhibition go back to 2013, when the Sweden-based glass artist Yoko Andersson Yamano received a proposal: “How about making a book based on your glass works?” This was the genesis of the art book project Glass Tableware in Still Life. The project unfolded in Sweden, Germany and Japan, through a truly unique collaborative process. Yamano reached out to painters, who then verbally described the type of glass tableware they wished to paint. Yamano responded to these words by blowing glass. When the completed glass pieces arrived, the artists created still life paintings of them. The photographer Sambe Masahiro visited the artists’studios to take pictures of the glass and the finished paintings, and finally the designer Suyama Yuri gave the project the form of an art book.
This exhibition brings together the slightly distorted beauty unique to clear, free-blown glassware, the artists’ intimate paintings, charmingly buoyant black-and-white photographs, and a video capturing moments when glass pieces take shape in Yamano’s studio. These are interspersed with commentary on the glass works and the artists excerpted from Yamano’s essay reflecting on the project. Her words convey the essence of a project deeply rooted in verbal communication, and will surely aid visitors in contemplating stories surrounding the glassware, paintings, and photographs. We hope that viewers will enjoy imagining the narratives behind each work in this uniquely interwoven exhibition.