Special Contributions

Beautiful Glass Art or Not Beautiful Glass Art
— Looking back on past award-winners —（８／９）

The most interesting aspect at the 12th exhibition was the competition between two works that were candidates for the Grand Prize. On the one hand, KANG Min Haeng’s “Shape of Emotion” is an abstractly formed object, and on the other hand, TSUKADA Midori’s “A Flowery Shine” is a gigantic vase covered with fresh-looking decorations. Regarding the concept, the former is coming from the deep contemplation of the state between emotion and reason. The latter is a view of nature from her inner self. Both are excellent works full of individuality and the votes were split for a long time. In the end, KANG Min Haeng’s work won the Grand Prize. The main reason for the final choice was the interpretation of both works; a sculpture-like object or a gigantic vase? Finally, rather than the work which preserved the notion of the traditional beauty of glass, the object which ignored that idea to focus on the originality of expression was chosen as the Grand Prize winner. This was a symbolic selection for the exhibition in many ways.

Following that result, the subsequent Grand Prize winners, HIROGAKI Ayako and TSUMORI Hidenori, are also completely different in nature. They raised the curtain of their own stage while at the same time developing incredible techniques and research into the material. Their activities and trials have supported their work and made new forms of expression possible in contemporary art. This is extremely interesting and it gives me hope for the future of this field.