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Arts & Communication Contemporary Portuguese glass art

work is inspired by Duchamp, related to candlestick and The glass artworks were presented in this exhibition as
alcoholism. In the same year, the artist made two more a novel approach to the master’s work. The exhibition
28
pieces: Message in a Bottle, with bottles of Japanese sake presented original pieces and had a great success that the
and Pop Champagne, with bottles of champagne. Glass Museum made a second edition.
3.3. The new generation Specularis, looking through was another exhibition held
in 2018 at the Alberto Sampaio Museum, Guimarães,
In the past few years, students in Portugal have become Portugal. This exhibition was the outcome of an
increasingly more interested in working with glass as a fine interdisciplinary set of projects conducted by glass and
art material. As described above, an increase in available printmaking studios. It included research studies on
glass art courses and research programs has allowed practice-based artworks produced as a result of the fusion
students to join investigation teams which incorporate between printmaking and glass arts.
glass into their practical works.
In 2019, another exhibition was held in the same city;
Carlos Mensil in his Painting Masters developed what to reimagine the ways, glass was understood in the field
he called the false readymade. The pieces show a material of academia. This exhibition intended to show glass as a
that was not used in the works. In his piece Traces of fine art medium and introduce the visitors to the different
Painting, 2012, we have an illusion that wood was used techniques that can be used. Michael Rogers visited the
when in reality, it is painted on glass. In this series, Carlos exhibition and stated:
thinks of the studio as a part of history, a piece of ground
that contains traces of a painting. Atelier, 65 × 55 × 10 cm, “I saw several multi-media works, glass incorporated
2011, is another example. This piece was displayed in the with other materials. It appeared that the artists understood
exhibition Temperatures of Variation in the Arts Palace, the opportunities that glass as a material presents, not only
Porto, in 2012. He also adapted the same illusion approach its physical and optical qualities but the metaphorical
with other materials (for example, some of his works look associations of the material as well.” 29,p.4
like a ceramic brick but are actually wood), seeking to Daniela Ribeiro, a glass and mosaic technician at
explore the esthetic and structural potential of materials the Faculty of Fine Arts, Porto University, presented a
outside their usual context. One of his works, untitled, 80 work that she had been developing in her Masters in
× 60 × 1.5 cm, 2017, represents a broken window, and the Painting. In her piece Interior composition 2.18, 42 × 80
material used is not even glass; instead, it is plastic. × 5 cm (Figure 8). She uses the kiln casting technique and
The exhibition Bordalo Pinheiro, 170 years later by recycled glass and works in abandoned places that used to
students of the Faculty of Fine Arts, organized in 2016 epitomize technological modernization, such as the Freixo
in the Rector Building of Porto University, was a tribute thermoelectric power station that had been operating since
to a great Portuguese artist, Bordalo Pinheiro, who is a 1927. The natural degradation of obsolete buildings that
ceramist. Students reinvented his pieces using the material, occurs over time is an expected factor and for Daniela
ceramics, and also used glass as an innovative approach. Ribeiro, the place has a sublime atmosphere that is

Figure 8. Daniela Ribeiro, Interior composition 2.18, 42 × 80 × 5 cm, Palacete
Figure 7. Joana Vasconcelos, The Necter, 720 × Ø350 cm, Centro Cultural de Santiago, Guimarães, 2019. Photo credit: Author- Copyright @ 2020Teresa
de Belém, 2006. Photo credit: Author. Almeida. Reprinted with the permission of the artist Daniela Ribeiro

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 7 doi: 10.36922/ac.2777