Article and interview from the Mindcraft Project Journal 2021: Stine Bidstrup: Two decades of glass craftsmanship
Appointed Curator of the Tallinn Applied Art Triennial 2021
PRESS RELEASE
Announcing curator and theme for the 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial
The next Tallinn Applied Art Triennial will be curated by Stine Bidstrup, a Danish glass artist and art historian, whose curatorial concept focuses on the phenomenon of translucency both in contemporary craft and in a broader social context. The 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial opens at Kai Art Center on 28 May 2021.
The main exhibition of the triennial titled "Translucency" is built around Stine Bidstrup's curatorial concept and features around twenty artists. Merle Kasonen, the chairwoman of the triennial, highlighted the curatorial concept's resonance in various fields of applied art as well as its broader implications in the contemporary world. "As Stine pointed out, depending on the context, translucency can reveal what is hidden or conceal what is seemingly visible," added Merle Kasonen.
For example, the curator expanded on how wide use and promotion of glass (and transparency) indicates power and economic surplus, but when transparency is proclaimed as a sign of openness in architecture or politics or elsewhere, it is more often than not a sign of opacity, of not being able to see what is really going on. Looking in and looking out do not take place on equal grounds – transparency on the surface can, in fact, hide hermetic power structures and hierarchies. However, opacity, too, can be of value and at times, truly necessary," explains Stine Bidstrup, whose curatorial concept centres what is in-between the two extremities – translucency.
Stine Bidstrup is a Danish glass artist, educator and art historian whose work and research explores optical phenomena, and interprets and brings ideas about utopian, architectural visions to life through glass sculptures, installation and video. Her curiosity revolves around the power of perception and power of context and point of view in constructing our understanding through vision and how the human eye and mind are always engaged in myriad determinations and negotiations.
Bidstrup holds art degrees from The Rhode Island School of Design and The Royal Danish Academy of Art School of Design and a degree in art history from The University of Copenhagen. She has taught in Denmark and internationally. She maintains a studio in Copenhagen, goes to Småland Sweden to blow glass, and is represented by Heller Gallery in New York and FUMI Gallery in London.
The 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial opens at Kai Art Center in Port Noblessner in Tallinn (Estonia) on 28 May 2021 and will remain open to visitors until 15 August 2021.
Tallinn Applied Art Triennial is an international art event established in 1997, organised by NGO Tallinn Applied Art Triennial Society. The triennial contributes to the development of fields of applied art and contemporary craft.
Please find attached a photograph of Stine Bidstrup and a visual for the 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial.
Additional information:
Merle KasonenThe 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial, chairwoman merle@trtr.ee, +372 528 1637www.trtr.ee/en
Stine BidstrupThe 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial, curator
Katre Ratassepp
The 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial, communication
katre@trtr.ee, +372 509 6650
The Design Edit: Artists under Lockdown
Full article available via this link: https://thedesignedit.com/the-qa/stine-bidstrup/
Architectural Glass Fantasies at Gallery FUMI in London
New solo presentation at Gallery FUMI in London’s Mayfair neighborhood is up from 03 February — 24 April 2020, showing eight new sculptures in the Architectural Glass Fantasies Series, 2020.
More info: https://galleryfumi.com/exhibitions/2020/spring-2020/
Bifurcation, 2017, Fused and stretched glass
The Spring Exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg
The work Bifurcation has been selected by the jury to be part of this year’s Spring Exhibition at Charlottenborg.
It is with great pleasure that the Charlottenborg Foundation and Kunsthal Charlottenborg invite to the opening of the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition 2020, one of the most important open, censored exhibitions in Europe since 1857. The opening will take place on:
Saturday February 1, 7pm-12 midnight
The exhibition closes at 10pm
Welcome speech at 7.30pm by Thomas Lindvig, Chairman of the Board, the Charlottenborg Foundation. Following, opening speech on behalf of this year's jury by Director at Malmö Art Museum Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg, where this year's winners of the Solo Award and the newly established Talent Award are also announced.
This year 70 Danish and international artists and artist groups have been selected by the jury among 736 applicants. A total of 134 works are on display this year created by well-established artists, but also by emerging young talents from Denmark and Europe as well as Israel, Russia and USA.
This year's jury is Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg (Director, Malmö Art Museum), Morten Løbner Espersen (craftsman), Tina Maria Nielsen (visual artist), Trine Søndergaard (visual artist) and Trude Mardal (architect).
3 Years of Room for Immersion and Continuation of Artistic Practice
I am infinitely honored and grateful to have been awarded the 3-Year Work Grant from The Danish Arts Foundation this year in support of my work in Denmark and abroad.
The motivation for the award can be read here in Danish: www.kunst.dk
And a translated version here:
Stine Bidstrup's fascinating sculptural glassworks draw inspiration from the history of architecture and design, and are based on a very high level of craftsmanship, which makes it possible to work freely in the material and involve several layers of meaning. At her first solo exhibition at Heller Gallery NYC in the fall of 2018, she showed an impressive range of highly attractive works from the series Architectural Glass Fantasies, where her starting point was to interpret utopian ideas through optical phenomena. Stine Bidstrup's works have grown both in size and expression over the past few years and appear both impressive and innovative, and she is now standing in front of an international breakthrough. Against this background, we in the Danish Arts Foundation will back her up with 3 years for immersion, idea development and creation of new personal works.
Interview in Artsy.net: 10 Innovative Glass Artists on the Challenges and Joys of their Medium
Detail of featured piece in New Glass Now
Bidstrup set to showcase at major New York exhibition NEW GLASS NOW
New Glass Now opens at Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York on May 12, 2019, a highly-anticipated exhibition 60 years in the making. Featuring works by 100 living artists working in glass today, New Glass Now will take over every corner of The Corning Museum of Glass.
Stine Bidstrup has been selected to participate with a piece from her Bifurcations Series.
New Glass Now will document the innovation and dexterity of artists, designers, and architects around the world working in the challenging material of glass. A global survey designed to show the breadth and depth of contemporary glassmaking, the exhibition will feature objects, installations, videos, and performances made in the last three years by 100 artists of 32 nationalities working in more than 25 countries.
Magazine feature in The Moodboarders #72
The Italian magazine Moodboarders paid the fall 2018 exhibition Architectural Glass Fantasies - Utopia Materialized at Heller Gallery in New York a visit (p. 40-53):
Speaking at MANIFESTA 2019 on Jan 17th in Copenhagen
I have been invited by the Danish Arts Foundation to speak at the annual New Years celebration of art and design at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.
It will be a festive evening with talks on how Danish art and design is being exhibited and appreciated in the US. www.kunst.dk & www.design-manifesta.dk
New Installation at the Toledo Museum of Art Showcases Recent Acquisition
Stine Bidstrup's Architectural Glass Fantasies No. 23 (2018) was recently acquired by The Toledo Museum of Art as part of their permanent collection. The piece is now going on view in the museum's Glass Pavilion by Japanese architects SANAA in a new installment of the collection titled Now & Then: Moments in Glass History.
More info:
Architectural Glass Fantasies no. 28, 2018
New Scandinavian Glass in London
8th November - 22nd December 2018 at Vessel Gallery in London.
Historically a hub for glass production throughout the 20th Century, Scandinavia has changed dramatically in recent years. With production costs at an all time high, much glassmaking has migrated to Countries that can carry the burgeoning costs more easily.
New Scandinavian Glass will focus on a revived approach that makers & artists are taking, to create unique and unexpected works of art that are executed with the highest level of craftsmanship.
Featuring a selection of 25 new and established artists, this will be the largest presentation to date of contemporary Scandinavian glass to be shown in the UK.
http://www.vesselgallery.com/public/New_Scandinavian_Glass_catalogue_2018.pdf
The Salon Art + Design opens tonight in New York City
Tonight The Salon Art + Design Fair in New York City opens with Heller Gallery representing Stine Bidstrup's latest works in the Architectural Glass Fantasies Series in booth D10. The fair takes place at the historic Park Avenue Armory.
The fair is open to the public on Friday Nov 9 until Monday Nov 12, 2018.
SOFA Chicago this week
Stine Bidstrup is represented by Heller Gallery (NYC) at this year’s SOFA Chicago that takes place this week on Nov 1-4, 2018. Opening night Thursday Nov 1.
Stine will be showing new sculptures from the Architectural Glass Fantasies series.
For more information:
Catalogue from Architectural Glass Fantasies - Utopia Materialized
ARCHITECTURAL GLASS FANTASIES SERIES - OBJECT NO. 15, 2018, glass, 9 3/8 x 11 3/8 x 9 in
Architectural Glass Fantasies: Utopia Materialized - Solo Show at Heller Gallery, NYC, Sept 13 - Oct 20, 2018
New York, NY – Heller Gallery is pleased to announce our first solo exhibition of work by Danish artist Stine Bidstrup. The exhibition, Architectural Glass Fantasies: Utopia Materialized, is comprised of fifteen new pieces from the artist’s eponymous series.
In 2013 Bidstrup started work on her Architectural Glass Fantasies series, which is inspired by The Crystal Chain, a correspondence project initiated by German architect Bruno Taut and influenced by his friend and mentor, German writer and utopian fabulist Paul Scheerbart. During 1919-20, in the aftermath of World War I, Taut invited and encouraged a small group of architects to exchange letters and drawings on what form the architecture of the future should take. The experiment produced a well-documented volume of correspondence in which participants described their utopic ideas of beneficent architecture and visions for an ideal society, many built entirely out of colored glass and steel.
Bidstrup’s sculptures are based on these ideas about glass architecture and about the potentially colossal impact the Crystal Chain correspondents imagined it could have on society. Her work is driven by her curiosity to understand and visually interpret the construction, scope and complexity of utopic ideas through glass. Giving physical form to ideas that were intended only as a philosophical exercise, Bidstrup says that her sculptures can be regarded as a type of an architectural model, suggesting a transformation of scale in the imagination of the viewer.
Stine Bidsrup was educated at the Rhode Island School of Design and has taught at her alma mater, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, School of Design on Bornholm since 2009. She has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Pilchuck Glass School and took part in residencies in Estonia, Finland, India, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. Bidstrup has exhibited internationally for the past decade. She is a founding member of the Copenhagen-based collaborative Luftkraft Glasstudie (Luftkraft Glass Studio). Her work is held in public collections in the United States and Europe, including the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI and the Danish Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen.
Heller Gallery plays a seminal role in promoting glass as a medium for contemporary sculpture and design. It has been a valuable resource for artists, museums, and collectors worldwide since 1973. The gallery represents a prestigious roster of international artists and designers, whose practice incorporates glass as a creative medium.
Numerous artworks have entered preeminent public collections as a direct result of Heller Gallery's exhibitions and advocacy. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art have acquired works from the gallery as has The Corning Museum of Glass, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and numerous museums worldwide, including Victoria & Albert Museum, Musee des Arts Decoratifs de Louvre, and Hokkaido Museum, among others.
Pop Up this Sunday with six fellow Danish glass artists
I am participating in a pop-up exhibition this Sunday August 12th from 5-7 pm at the National Workshops for Art. After a private viewing the exhibition will open to the public from 5-7 pm and is a rare opportunity to see a group of internationally known glass artists in Copenhagen.
A Retrospective Exhibition in Bergen’s S12 Gallery
Stine Bidstrup is part of a retrospective exhibition that opens today, Friday July 6th 2018 at 7 pm, in S12 Gallery and Studio in Bergen, Norway. She took part in the Artist in Residence program in S12 in 2013.
From the press release:
Welcome to an exhibition showing 64 works made by 27 of the 49 artist who have taken part in our Artist in Residence program, during the period of 2010 – 2018.
This retrospective is to mark the moving of S12 later this year to a new location in Bontelabo. It gives us the opportunity to look back and showcase some of the interesting works and experiments made in our workshop during the period we have been in Skostredet.
S12 will this summer parallel with the exhibition, introduce all 49 artists who have taken part in the AiR i S12 program, giving you the opportunity to get to know them all through our newsletter, our webpage, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The AiR in S12 program was launched in 2010, with the intention to support artists who use experimental, conceptual, and innovative approach when working with glass, as well as giving artists who don’t know the material the possibility to work with it.
Included in the exhibition are the following artists:
Alexandra Muresan, Amanda Patenaude, Alison Lowry, Angela Davies, Anne Petters, Aric Snee, Ben Wright, Brad Turner, CUD – John Drury and Robbie Miller, Damien Francois, DH McNabb, Doreen Garner, Einar and Jaimex de la Torre, Ito Laïla Le François, John Moran, Julia Chamberlain, Justin Ginsberg, Kate Clements, Margarida Alves, Maria Bang Espersen, Maria Koshenkova, Mike Simi, Saman Kalantari, Stine Bidstrup, Verena Schatz.
AiR i S12 has been supported by the City of Bergen from its beginning, and the running of the workshop has been made possible by the Norwegian Arts Council. Others who have supported the program during shorter periods are:
Kulturkontakt Nord/Nordic Culture Point – 1 yr. (2015/16)
Norske kunsthåndverkere 2 yrs (2013 & 14)
Recipient of the Danish Arts Foundation Work Grant
I am honored and thankful to receive a work grant from the Danish Arts Foundation for the coming year's activities and continued artistic explorations. Thank you!
SHOW UP at RØM in Copenhagen this Friday
I have been invited to participate in an experiment!
The artist-run exhibition space RØM in the former vegetable market in Copenhagen has invited 55 artists to show up with an artwork to install. But until the opening on Friday April 6th at 5 pm, no one knows who will show up. The show is an experiment: There will be no exhibition before the artists arrive on the opening night with the artwork, and hang it in a collaboratively orchestrated and probably chaotic event.