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Arts & Communication Contemporary Portuguese glass art

where light and transparency are synonyms of truth.” 23,p.8 the artists started working this material this was not the
Ana Margarida Rocha questions the hyper-visibility case. Today, recycling is extremely important in Portugal,
of the images captured by the Mars Exploration of the but when the artist started reusing bottle glass, the idea of
Red Planet. The artist references the image of the planet recycling in art was not widespread. Many artists said it
with luminescence. Her work, Luminescence from the was not possible to use recycling bottle glass for technical
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Red Planet, is an installation inside a cube; the image is reasons, due to the nature of this material. However,
visualized by optical devices (what we see in Figure 3). She Cristina Camargo has tested and proved that bottle glass
recently defended her PhD in 2023 and presented several can and should be used to create works of art.
works made with luminescent materials. 24 Cristina Camargo also seeks to establish a relationship
The United Nations together with the International with multimedia art, creating installations where sound
Glass Commission (ICG), the Society of Glass Societies and image produce a harmonious relationship with
(CGA), and the International Glass Museums and glass. The work Les trois our, presented in the exhibition
Association (ICOM) declared 2022 the international year “Contemporary Portuguese Artistic Glass IV” in 2007, is
of glass, coinciding with the 20 anniversary of VICARTE. one of the examples portraying this relationship. The bird
th
VICARTE continues to study these materials and also and the use of recycled glass are still a strong element in
researches other innovative combinations, maintaining Cristina Camargo’s pieces. In 2017, she created A Little More
the link between glass and science. Throughout the years, Blue, 200 × Ø150 cm (Figure 4), using blue bottle glass.
a great effort has been made to overcome resistance to In his glass pieces, the sculptor Abílio Febra makes sculptures
innovative academic approaches, and the search for what using the casting technique, with compositions mixed with
is still unknown and undone was based on the old and new glass, stone, and metal, in works such as The Blue Comet, 30 × 10
technological challenges. × 7 cm, 2000, exhibited at the Third Marinha Grande Fine Arts
Biennale, and Pendulum Imprisoned with Gargoyle, 125 × 20 ×
3.2. The background 10 cm, 2001, featured in the First Exhibition of Contemporary
Since 2001, a glass museum opened in Marinha Grande in Portuguese Artistic Glass. This artist explores the idea of time in
1998 has organized an exhibition entitled “Contemporary – the pendulum, but the idea of movement is not presented here,
Portuguese artistic glass.” The museum is divided between as he wants to immobilize time.
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two locations: one is the old house of Guilherme Stephens – Alberto Vieira participated in the First Exhibition of
the owner of the glass factory – dedicated to the history of glass Contemporary Artistic Glass with the piece The Plague,
in Marinha Grande and the other, a space for contemporary 55 × 55 × 70 cm, 2001, a work that combines metal with glass.
art, was opened in 2013. The exhibition Contemporary – Since then, his artistic concepts have become related to the
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Portuguese Artistic Glass aims to showcase pieces made by theme of “home.” His early works revolve around moving
Portuguese artists or by foreigners living in Portugal. parts and architectural constructions powered by electronic
The artist Cristina Camargo, who was a student at mechanisms. Transparent Mirror(s), 34 × 28.8 × 35 cm,
FBAUP, seeks to establish a relationship between metal and
molten glass, which gives many of her pieces a sculptural
character. Perfecting the technique of glass fusion, Cristina
Camargo manages to create works not only with esthetic but
also technical quality. Her work Because the sea is my way,
150 × 180 × 180 cm, made from a fusion of packaging glass
and iron and enriched with sound from the installation
piece, was worthy of an honorable mention at the sixth
biennial of Marinha Grande in 2006. Following the same
formal language, Cristina Camargo developed the work All
the Birds…, 200 × 65 × 40 cm, presented in the exhibition
“Portuguese Contemporary Artistic Glass III” in 2006. In
this piece, a set of small glass birds on metallic rods are
placed in a circular pattern, moving in the direction of the
wind while the melodic sound of bird chirping is being
played. The use of bottle glass reflects an environmental Figure 4. Cristina Camargo, A Little more Blue, blue bottle glass and iron,
awareness in the utilization of waste materials. Recycling 200 × Ø150 cm, 2017. Photo credit: Cristina Camargo. Copyright © 2017
is already a major concern in Portugal today, but when Cristina Camargo. Reprinted with permission of Cristina Camargo.

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 5 doi: 10.36922/ac.2777