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.
