ART REVIEWS : GLASS SOCIETY SHOWS ITS METTLE

An inordinate number of art shows are coming up glass this week, and it’s no coincidence. The Glass Art Society is holding its annual national conference in Los Angeles, at the Ambassador Hotel through Saturday.

In conjunction with the four-day meeting (largely an illustrated talk fest featuring lectures, panels and technical discussions), about 20 galleries have staged glass art exhibitions. The roster lists a batch of little solo presentations, a collaborative installation, a national competitive exhibition, eight other group shows and a couple of museum displays of historical material.

Putting glass under so many spotlights does more than illuminate its seductive beauty and the many ways contemporary artists have used it. The conference and attendant exhibitions force the issue of why there is a Glass Art Society and why any group of artists and aficionados would rally around a material.

Isn’t art the point? Apparently, not entirely.

The society promotes glass as fine art through publications, education, commerce and camaraderie. Enlightened leaders want to free glass from the constraints of crafts and decorative arts. But, like most media-related art groups, the society simultaneously pursues both insularity and assimilation. Members want the security of glass shows and the wider acceptance of the art world.

The exhibitions go a long way to dispel the image of “glass artists” as makers of paperweights, perfume bottles and stained-glass windows. One tactic is to include just plain artists who have used glass as their work dictates and have built reputations accordingly. Larry Bell was the keynote speaker for the conference, and works by Lynda Benglis, Thomas Bang and Italo Scanga are in the best group show, “Cast Glass Sculpture,” at Cal State Fullerton’s art gallery (through May 11).

It’s a glass show, all right, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at many of the artworks. Under the circumstances, that’s a compliment. Bang’s chunky boat and arrow shapes, trapped in charred wood housings (in a group of floor sculptures), are simply evocative objects that suggest encrusted memories of journeys. Benglis shows a ribbonlike torso and two sandy, twisted knot sculptures, apparently selecting glass for the job because of its plasticity and light-transmitting capacity.

When Scanga perches a glass head and bottle shape on a wooden pedestal table, in his funky piece called “Funnel Head,” he pulls off an effective transition between opaque and transparent materials, using both as surfaces to be irreverently painted.

Howard Ben Tre takes glass off the coffee table and into architecture when he fashions 6-foot columns of rough, greenish glass, banded with turquoise pigment and topped with branching capitals. His work would be just the ticket for a Post-Modern building.

While much of the glass at Fullerton is textured, painted or encapsulated almost beyond recognition, a few artists celebrate its purity. Steven Weinberg, for one, makes variations on cubes that are sheer perfection. Clifford Rainey’s small classical nude--emerging from a chunk of glass and sliced by sheets of glass--calls up a host of historical and material references while exploiting glass’ cool beauty.

“Perspectives in Glass: Present Tense,” at the Craft and Folk Art Museum (through April 27), also presents an eclectic lineup of art far removed from grandma’s cupboard. But beyond the fascination of seeing glass in every form from expressionistically painted old windows to wire-wrapped vases, the general run of work is so ragged that you have to wonder whether this is progress.

Among the colorful curiosities brought together by guest curator Chris Robbins are Kerry Feldman’s jaunty, see-through glass figures; Richard Marquis’ cabinets, jam-packed with bric-a-brac, and James Watkins’ wan figurative constructions that emulate moody paintings.

The artists in “Perspectives” have thrown themselves into the turbulent mainstream of fine art--mainly painting--which is to their credit, but most of their work isn’t strong enough to endure pointed comparisons with it.

Two artists who have taken the fine-art plunge and have come up swimming are John Luebtow and Christopher Lee, in a collaborative installation at the Brand Library Art Gallery in Glendale (through April 30). In a long (90-by-30-foot) room, they have installed a massive wall of lead-wrapped wood that bisects the space and leads into a group of transparent glass and mirrored boxes. The boxes (both flat-topped and slanted) fan out from one corner, throwing shimmering reflections on walls, while long strips of stainless steel and wavy glass seem to rain on them.

The massive piece doesn’t entirely obliterate the plain room, but it has some lovely passages. The overarching effect is an evocation of nature--huge boulders, smaller rocks, falling water and dappled light. The artists have merged the conflicting concepts of force and delicacy in what is finally a contemplative environment.

People who want glass to be glass, and as elegant as possible, will be happy at the Downey Art Museum, where Steuben Glass has sent a dazzling cluster of contemporary works by Peter Aldridge, David Dowler and Eric Hilton to accompany a competitive exhibition, “Glass Art National” (through May 9).

The national show consists of 36 works by 28 artists, selected from 338 entries by author and artist Robert Kehlmann. That “Glass Art National” looks so thin says less about the status of glass art than that the best artists tend to avoid such exhibitions.

Nonetheless, Kehlmann has put together a respectable cross section of everything from traditional vessels to neon. Ruth Brockmann’s spirited masks are here, along with Kreg Kallenberger’s pristine sculpture, a work from Brent Kee Young’s “Fossil Series” and Daniel Clayman’s haunting little architectural remnant called “Grey Segment.”

Among other glass shows currently in town: Dale Chihuly’s work at James Corcoran Gallery (8223 Santa Monica Blvd.); Paul Seide’s “Radio Light” sculpture at Kurland/Summers Gallery (8742-A Melrose Ave.); John Lewis’ cast glass, at Del Mano Gallery (11981 San Vicente Blvd.); “American Glass Sampler” at Cross Creek Gallery (3835 Cross Creek Road, Malibu), “Bright Ideas” by Harry Anderson at Functional Art (9000 Melrose Ave.).

Most of the galleries are open tonight for conferees and the public.