NEW YORK, NY.- R & Company announces the opening of Jeff Zimmerman, an exceptional new body of work by the preeminent glass artist. The exhibition opened to the public on Tuesday, January 19th.
The exhibition finds Zimmerman reaching new heights within the universe of objects and motifs he unveiled in previous exhibitions. Already considered a maestro in the glass world when he opened his first solo exhibition with R & Company in 2007, Zimmerman has since honed his craft even further, working at both a micro and macro scale to explore and exploit the possibilities of the material. In this exhibition the designer builds on an already momentous career to present entirely new sculptural and functional works of exceptional creativity and staggering beauty.
The exhibition is inspired primarily by Zimmerman's concept of time as it relates to processes in nature, particularly in relation to water. From the rapid staccato of a skipped stone, to the meditative passage of ice flows, to the seemingly eternal formation of a crystal, Zimmerman makes these invisible moments visible and in doing so offers a new perspective on how we consider time in our daily lives.
The movement of water is a natural analog to the process of glass-making itself, in which the material moves from fluid and molten to permanently fixed. At a time when so much design is created digitally and through computer modeling, it is a can't-miss event to witness a designer with this level of skill and dedication, taking risks and working by hand to capture the humbling awe and wonder of natural phenomena. Zimmerman’s practice marries technical mastery of a single medium with rigorous conceptual thought, resulting in work that re-defines the possibilities of glass-making.
Jeff Zimme rman features over a dozen new works as well as a large selection of the designer's sketches and process drawings. The exhibition remains on view through February 20, 2016.
A celebrated master glass artist, Jeff Zimmerman (b. 1968) belongs to a group of daring contemporary artists who employ the ancient material as a means of expression rather than an end in itself. Raised by a painter mother and a sculptor stepfather at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado, his early exposure to nature remains a vital force in his work. In 1988, while pursuing a degree in Anthropology in Santa Barbara, California, Zimmerman took his first glass blowing class. This led to learning the classical Venetian approach to glass blowing while receiving his BFA at a small arts school in the woods of Tennessee. Summers were spent on staff at the Pilchuk School in Seattle. It was there that he was exposed to master Italian glass technicians Lino Tagliapietro and Pino Signoretto. His's training also includes working as a master glass blower at C.I.R.V.A., a contemporary design and art center in Marseille, France. While making experimental sculpture and traveling throughout Europe and Africa, Jeff worked with such esteemed artists as Robert Wilson, Gaetano Pesce and Robert Morris.
Zimmerman has exhibited at galleries and institutions internationally, including Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Paris, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the American Crafts Museum. In 2011 he completed commissions for the Hyundai Capital headquarters in Seoul, Korea, and Irvine, California. His work is in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, and the Boghossian Foundation, Belgium, as well as private collections worldwide. Zimmerman currently lives and works in New York.
