Special Contributions
Beautiful Glass Art or Not Beautiful Glass Art
— Looking back on past award-winners —（３／９）
The Final Assessment of the 15th International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa 2022 has been successfully completed. Looking back at the submitted works, they were all fortunately within the sphere of glass art. Whether we view this as “fortunate” is another matter. As I mentioned at the beginning, my impression is that the jurors’ evaluation and selection process does not relate to whether the work is perceived as beautiful or not. There does not seem to be much interest in works that are considered to be merely beautiful. Jurors, myself included, are more concerned with the meaning of the form as well as the concept of expression, rather than the esthetics. As a result, works with more complicated and unique ideas tend to be highly esteemed. It could be said that the jurors’ attitude toward finding the deep meaning of expression is part of the zeitgeist, shared with people of this time. It seems to be this way.
With this in mind, the Final Assessment was carried out smoothly and finally, the Grand Prize winner was decided. In a way, the work possesses an element of surprise. I felt a little bewildered because the work has a very traditional form, very glass-like and has an orthodox style. To put it another way, it shows the origins of the beauty of glass. It transmits a sense of neatness, combining sensitivity, mutability and fragility. In the midst of the chaos of the repetitive voting for the Grand Prize winner, all of a sudden this work jumped to the top of the list. Although surrounded by many unique and powerful objects which made it seem not so unique or powerful by comparison, it was miraculously chosen. After this decision, I asked myself why I felt a sense of relief.
2022 (15th) Grand Prize “Setsusetsu,Syoukei” TANAKA, Saki