West Sky

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Object Name: 
Sculpture
Title: 
West Sky
Accession Number: 
2000.4.5
Dimensions: 
Overall H: 260 cm, W: 26.9 cm; Base W: 76.2 cm, D: 76.2 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
1997
Web Description: 
"The 'Sky' works are splinters of heaven fallen to earth. They mirror the heavens, the earth, and the self, who is watching. My dream is to put one of my works on the sacred Greek island of Delos. Invisible. Glass is a water fossil, the water of the desert." Alessandro Diaz de Santillana uses color and form to interpret the four elements of the exterior world (air, earth, fire, and water) and the five senses of the interior world (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). His abstract sculptures are minimal yet sensuous. In West Sky, he translates the element of sky and its sense-associations (light, air, wind, cold, fresh, open) into a hard, reflective, aerodynamic vertical. This frozen silver zeppelin is made invisible by its mirrored surface, filled with air bubbles, which reflects the world around it. De Santillana is part of a famous glassmaking family. His grandfather, Paolo Venini (1895–1959), founded the influential Venini glassworks on the island of Murano in 1921. His father, Ludovico Diaz de Santillana (1931–1989), produced many well known designs for Venini. His sister, Laura de Santillana (b. 1955), is an independent artist whose work is also shown in this gallery.
Provenance: 
Diaz de Santillana, Alessandro (Italian, 1959-2018), Source
1999-12-29
Material: 
Primary Description: 
Colorless glass, steel; blown, cut, silvered, assembled. Tall waisted thin ovoid shape. Silvered on the inside, with a steel support.
Venue(s)
Corning Museum of Glass
Changing Exhibitions Gallery
The Glass Skin
Venue(s)
Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art 1997-10-01 through 1997-11-16
Corning Museum of Glass 1998-05-16 through 1998-10-18
Dusseldorf Kuntsmuseum 1999-02-14 through 1999-04-21
 
Contemporary Glass Sculptures and Panels: Selections from the Corning Museum of Glass (2008) illustrated, p. 36, 158-159 (fig. 71, plate 55); BIB# 107478
Sculpture, Glass, and American Museums (2005) illustrated, p. 65; BIB# 88835
A Conversation with Tina Oldknow (2002) p. 6; BIB# AI53874
Recent Important Acquisitions, 43 (2001) illustrated, p. 220, fig. 54; BIB# AI53002
The Glass Skin (1998) illustrated, p. 45, #14; BIB# 58897
The Glass Skin (1998) illustrated, p. 45, #14; BIB# 61912