Tacoma, Wash. (October 10, 2006)— The Museum of Glass is pleased to welcome Jean-Michel Othoniel as a Visiting Artist to the Hot Shop October 18 – 22, 2006. Othoniel will work with the Museum’s Hot Shop Team to create components for a new glass installation to be included in Mining Glass, an exhibition that will showcase the Museum as it celebrates its Fifth Anniversary. Opening in June 2007, Mining Glass will present the works of internationally renowned artists whose installations will accentuate the exceptional qualities of glass as a sculptural medium used in contemporary art outside the Studio Glass movement.

Othoniel’s installation, titled Black Heart, Red Tears, will combine thousands of small black beads crafted in Italy and France with larger hand blown glass elements he will create during his Museum of Glass residency. In his work, Othoniel explores fantasy, desire, self-portraiture and the body and often produces narrative installations inspired by these themes. He creates large glass, organic-shaped forms and assembles them into jewel-like ornaments, pendants, crowns, and gigantic beads in his large-scale sculpture. Black Heart, Red Tears will be similar to Othoniel’s 1997 work, Paysage Amoureux, or “landscape in love,” which is included in the Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain Collection in Paris, France.

About the Artist:

Jean-Michel Othoniel was born in Saint-Etienne, Loire, France in 1964 and studied at the French Academy at Villa Medici in Rome. He is one of the most renowned French artists working in glass today. He has had solo exhibitions at prestigious museums such as the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris, France; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; and the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Venice, Italy.

About the Visiting Artist Program:

The Museum of Glass Hot Shop Visiting Artist Program includes internationally known artists and emerging artists from the region and around the world—some who are masters of glass and some who are experimenting with the medium for the first time. They work with the Museum’s resident Hot Shop team to explore, invent and create with glass. With a diverse mixture of culture, style, focus and expertise, each artist offers Museum visitors the chance to experience a distinct creative style.

The Visiting Artist Program at the Museum of Glass is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Courtyard by Marriott / Tacoma. The Visiting Artist lecture series is sponsored by PONCHO.