Exquisite Juxtapositionsthe Art of Martin Rosol

Cover: Triguetra 16.5 x 18 x 3"

We have shared a friendship with Martin Rosol since 1988, and have valued our relationship with him, his family and as a professional, working artist. Over the years, we have witnessed his steadfast commitment to the clarity of form, light and sense of place which we first found inspiring many years ago. Unlike most artists working in glass, Martins is a solitary pursuit which takes him on a quiet journey from the back door of his home in Shelburne Falls to the front door of his studio. Inside, he is surrounded by his cold working equipment, most of which he built himself. Martin’s drawings, individually mixed laminates, color samples and blocks of crystal glass cover every surface in one room, while the wet area houses the huge cutting and grinding machines necessary to polish to perfection each surface he has cut. Though there is an occasional assistant for lifting heavy blocks of glass, the artist works with the sound of his machines and the meditative turning of the polishing wheels as they define and refine the ideal surface for each sculpture. We invite you to enjoy the beauty and power of Martin Rosol’s art.

Jim Schantz and Kim SaulSchantz Galleries, 2012

Luxor 17.5 x 17 x 4” Schantz Galleries Publications 2012

Photography: David StansburyEssay: Jeanne Koles Design: Kim Saul

Exquisite Juxtapositionsthe Art of Martin Rosol

The Art of Martin RosolPristine surfaces provide fields for light to play in the sculptures of Martin Rosol, a glass artist who makes looking a participatory and ever-changing experience. His forms—faceted like futuristic gemstones—are designed to maximize light, show off its myriad features, and captivate the viewer in an infinitely reflective and always evolving place. Rosol begins his architectural sculptures by cutting blocks of

crystal and finishing the various sides with differing textures. Polishing creates ice-like surfaces while sandblasting results in a softer opaqueness. Areas of the glass are tinged with veneers of color that seem more prismatic illusion than real pigmentation. Finally, the parts are assembled in bifurcated geometric forms whose angles, intersections, and planes emanate with light and color. Solid bases rise into impossibly thin peaks and razor edges and dark areas give way to shimmering clarity.

In some ways, Rosol materializes the work of the California Light and Space group, artists such as James Turrell (b. 1943), who used light projections to impersonate physical space and who felt art was more about our perceptions than the objects being perceived. Though Rosol understands how optical illusion and shifting perspective can enhance seeing, he is still a glassmaker and lover of architecture who is fundamentally rooted in materiality. The elegant Luxor recalls the ancient Egyptian temple for which it is named but is a thoroughly futuristic envisioning of the earlier structure. Many Egyptian buildings employed illusionism, such as how the two obelisks flanking the entrance to the original Luxor Temple (one of which is now in the Place de la Concorde, Paris) seem to be, but are not in fact, the same height. Like the ancient temple, Rosol’s Luxor is a similarly cosmic monument, not to an ancient Egyptian deity but to light itself.

One of the characteristics of light that Rosol celebrates most is its duality. In Folia, a pair of tulip-like petals mirrors one another–each petal square on one side and rounded on the other, with an elegant slice down the center. Like light itself, Folia is a masterpiece of complementary elements working together—supple contours meet sharp edges, dark mustard meets canary yellow, finite space meets infinitely interconnected lines.

In tribute to the multifaceted nature of seeing itself, each object is a symphony of fluctuating shapes and tones continually altered by the position of the viewer. The magic of Rosol’s work is the ultimately harmonious feeling of balance it provides: of light and dark, hard and soft, reality and perception, tension and ease, and solidity and ethereality. From certain perspectives the sculptures may appear as mere figments of light’s imagination, but they are in fact the material creations of a master of his craft.

Jeanne Koles is an art historian who writes for museums and the cultural sector in New England.

WINGS8 x 31 x 2.5"

Ellipsoid15 x 20 x 3"

Folia15 x 23 x 3"

Martin Rosol1956, Prague, Czechoslovakia

EDUCATION 1973-1976: School for Art and Crafts, Prague, CZ

COLLECTIONSCorning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA Kanazawa Museum, Japan

Moravian National Gallery, Brno, Czech RepublicMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Museum, of Arts & Design, NY Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Seven Bridges Foundation, Greenwich, CT

AWARDSThe Bavarian State Prize for Glass Sculpture Munich, Germany - 1981

Like many Czech glassworkers, Martin Rosol learned his trade in a “company school” set up to train craftsmen to execute limited edition designs for art glass manufacturers. Though the arrangement provided employment for many, it did not provide young artists with the degree required by the old regime to sell art. So, by day, Martin turned out functional art in the form of bowls and vases for the factory. At night, using scrap from the day’s production, he created his own larger, more abstract pieces. Before long his sculptures were being exhibited in Europe and the United States, and in 1981, Martin was awarded the Bavarian State Prize for Glass Sculpture in Munich. In 1986, Rosol came to the United States to pursue his career as a glass sculptor, on a visitor’s passport. He worked with an established glass artist in New York State, helping another artist while perfecting his own work. After five months his visa expired, and he had to return to Czechoslovakia permanently in the summer of 1986. In 1994, The Rosol family became naturalized American citizens and they now live in Massachusetts, where Martin works in his own studio.

Influenced most by architectural studies, Martin’s sculptures, in the words on one admirer, are “works of elegant design and craftsmanship”. Made with several pieces of glass precisely cut from blocks of crystal, the glass is constructed in architectural forms after selected surfaces have been sand-blasted. The sculptures are multi-dimensional; some surfaces clear, some opaque. The results are “monuments to light”.

Monos13 x 18 x 3.5"

Schantz Galleries c o n t e m p o r a r y a r t

3 Elm Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts www.schantzgalleries.com 413-298-3044

the Art of Martin RosolExquisite Juxtapositions