Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Inspired by the Ozarks
Another reason to visit Crystal Bridges
Not everyone thinks that the head-turning work of Dale Chihuly is anything but decorative. But beauty is its own reason, and few would argue his unique approach to blown glass is out of place in an innovative museum like Crystal Bridges of American Art in Bentonville.
Chihuly: In the Gallery and In the Forest, which is in member preview mode now and opens to the public Saturday, is the enticing bait drawing attention to the re-opening of the museum’s North Forest Trail along with a new north entrance, lobby, elevator tower and pedestrian bridges while providing a selective retrospective of the popular artist’s career.
Dual exhibitions by Tacoma, Wash., native Chihuly are in the museum’s galleries as well as in the surrounding Ozarks forest. “Crystal Bridges is the only venue for this particular exhibition,” said Britt Cornett, head of exhibitions at Chihuly Studio, “and many of the works are presented in a new way or for the first time. The works are inspired by the surrounding nature and unique architectural elements at the museum.”
Chihuly’s interest in environmental installations is a complementary mindmeld to Crystal Bridges’ striking new 67-foot glass and copper elevator tower designed by architect Moshe Safdie (who designed the rest of Crystal Bridges) that opens inside the museum onto the east end of the Twentieth-Century Gallery Bridge, creating a third public entrance.
At the top level, visitors cross a scenic 100-foot elevated bridge traversing a bed of native plants to reach the North Forest Trail.
A year in the making, the new 1.1 mile paved trail, 10 feet wide with barely there inclines, increases accessibility of the museum’s natural landscape, now jauntily juxtaposed with vivid glass creations that sniff at the very idea of symmetry.
The outdoor exhibition features large installations of exuberant forms that stand out starkly against the forest’s shades of green, among them tubular Red Reeds (similar to an exhibit seen outdoors in the fountains at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock in 2014-2015) with their counterparts Neodymium Reeds and Turquoise Reeds, Fiori Boat (a riot of blown glass forms filling a faded old wooden rowboat), and Boathouse 7 Neon, a twisted, nervy blast of color created by Chihuly in the late 1960s.
Works on view in the indoor galleries include a swirly 2016 series called Rotolo featuring thick coils of clear glass, an almost-conventional group of lucent glass paintings called Glass on Glass, and 1965’s Weaving with Fused Glass, incorporating glass woven into a textile, which is said to be where Chihuly got the idea to pursue his dream of weaving and sculpting with molten glass.
“We’re excited to move toward realizing the full potential of our grounds,” said Scott Eccleston, Crystal Bridges Director of Operations. “Enhancing the trail and forest creates species diversity, welcomes visitors with accessibility issues to experience this area for the first time, and challenges returning visitors to see the relationships between art and its environment in new ways.”
As if we needed a new reason to visit the museum.