PORTLAND, OR.- Klaus Moje has pushed the boundaries of the expressive and technical capabilities of glass for more than five decades. Organized by the Portland Art Museum, this 30-year retrospective traces the progression of Moje’s work, from his early carved crystal glass pieces, to the development of layered patterned glass vessels, to his recent multi-panel fused works. The 68 objects in Klaus Moje illustrate the dominant shapes and aesthetics of his work, and reflect his unparalleled contribution to the field of glass art.

An exciting inclusion in the exhibition is The Portland Panels: Choreographed Geometry, a massive four-panel work created especially for this retrospective. Composed of more than 22,000 hand-cut strips of glass fused together at the Bullseye Glass factory studios in Portland, this work is a stunning technical achievement. Over the course of a year, Moje collaborated with a team of glass technicians to overcome problems with the process of fusing glass at this monumental scale.

Moje, who is internationally acknowledged as the father of the contemporary kiln-glass movement, has influenced glass artists around the world. Innovative for its size and scale, his work references post-war painterly abstraction through the visual effects of Op Art, as well as the colors and landscape of Australia. His complex aesthetic is built on simple pattern repetition, dense overlays, and the use of adjacent complimentary colors, as well as the application of painterly concerns and techniques to the medium of glass. Using special grinding and polishing equipment, Moje abrades and carves the glass surface to create a matte finish that absorbs light, resulting in a velvet-like appearance.

Moje’s career began in 1955 with the completion of his journeyman’s certificate as a glass cutter and grinder at his family’s workshop in Hamburg, Germany. He received his Master’s Certificate at the Rheinbach and Hadamar Glass Schools. In 1982, Moje immigrated to Australia, where he founded the world-renowned glass workshop at Australian National University’s Canberra School of Art. There, he inspired a generation of artists working with kilnformed glass at a time when studio glass myopically focused on blown glass and hot-shop furnace work. Moje’s many awards include recognition as one of Australia’s Living Treasures. His work is in more than 50 international public collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Moje will attend the opening of the exhibition, which is projected to travel to the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.