May 29 - June 21, 2020
“...the idea is born, and sometimes it is very easy and sometimes it is very hard to go in a new direction and find the correct way. But the good things give you energy. Sometimes it is important to think a lot, but thinking can complicate things. Sometimes the good things are the simple things, but then sometimes the easiest things are the most difficult to do. You can have something perfect, but then you lose the spirit. Sometimes you have the spirit and sometimes you don’t. I still get so much joy from the work. It is still absolutely the best thing I know.”
Lino working at his February 2020 residency at the Museum of Glass.
Through the arts, we are all together, In Spirit. During these difficult times, we gain strength through helping one another. We also believe that art can be a source of hope and healing.
Schantz Galleries is pleased to present a collection of new works by Maestro Lino Tagliapietra, featuring his most recent innovations in glass. This weekend, May 29-31, we had planned to premier the new film on Lino “The Making of a Maestro” at the Berkshire International Film Festival. Due to the current pandemic, all cultural organizations, and most businesses in the Berkshires are closed for the summer. Although our physical space is currently closed, we remain committed to installing our planned exhibitions in the gallery to be shared virtually with our audience.
We are happy to schedule a FaceTime tour of the gallery with our clients. Having the artwork displayed at the gallery gives us the opportunity to share the presence and nuance of each work. Many of our collectors enjoy the option to consider works from the comfort of home!
We know that the best way to experience art is in person, and will try our hardest to weather this storm in order to eventually open our doors again — with the belief that the outcome of isolation may be a renewed desire to see art in person.
CATALOG ESSAY
Each artwork by Maestro Lino Tagliapietra is a physical manifestation of the artist’s emotions, experiences, and audacious imagination, communicated to the viewer without the assistance of language or verbal explanation. Endowed with unparalleled technical prowess, boundless creative insight, and a charismatic disposition, Lino commands a thoroughly expressive visual vocabulary that guides the viewer. We see and feel as each piece articulates and reflects the inimitable spirit of a very special artist and soul.
Masai, 2020, 55 x 26 x 4” photo, Russell Johnson Click through to Exhibition Page.
Despite the visual nature of glass art, there is a place for words and sounds in the experience. Lino Tagliapietra has traveled extensively, witnessing and absorbing the richness of different world geographies, cultures, and glass practitioners then thoughtfully integrating these encounters into his work. Another source of inspiration for the artist, however, is the realm of things he has never experienced materially. Many ideas emanate from his fantastical imaginings of unknown places, reveries ignited by something he reads or a captivating word or sound. As a boy, one of his favorite writers was the Italian action-adventure author Emilio Salgari, who never left Verona but wrote about pirates sailing the high seas to Borneo and outlaws fighting corruption in the Old West. In the case of Lino Tagliapietra, a work such as Masai conjures the flora, fauna, and culture of the African tribe so elegantly, it feels like the artist must have spent time there. In fact, he simply loved the sound of the word “Masai” and allowed this to be the spark for the work. A lover of reading—whether history, politics, or stories in both English and Italian—he says that what he reads and hears offer as much creative motivation as what he sees.
Kira, (detail)
Nassau, (detail)
Aquilone, (detail)
On the experience of being an artist-in-residence, Tagliapietra highlights the importance of being in the moment. He says: “in the beginning, you are rusty in the mind, the hands, and the spirit. But soon, these things begin to move in concert, you start to feel free, your mind fills with ideas and emotions, and the experiment of making the work takes off.”
Lino never does drawings or sketches, saying he has no patience for it. Instead, there is a special alchemy that occurs between his mind and hands and the materials of glass and fire which cannot be predicted and for which there are no adequate words. The swirling Angel Tear, the serpentine Fenice, the florid Florencia, the exuberant Nassau, the sinuous Kira, the billowing Thila—each work is ultimately the expression of a single indefinable thing, the extraordinary spirit of Lino Tagliapietra. As he describes it, “the idea is born, and sometimes it is very easy and sometimes it is very hard to go in a new direction and find the correct way. But the good things give you energy. Sometimes it is important to think a lot, but thinking can complicate things. Sometimes the good things are the simple things, but then sometimes the easiest things are the most difficult to do. You can have something perfect, but then you lose the spirit. Sometimes you have the spirit and sometimes you don’t. I still get so much joy from the work. It is still absolutely the best thing I know.”
Excerpted from IN SPIRIT; the Art of Lino Tagliapietra, Catalog essay by Jeanne Koles.
