ON FINDING GLASS
AS A MEDIUM
JR: When you had those kinds of moments
of clarity through nature, did you think: I’m
an artist, I want to express this in my art
and glass is the best medium to do that in,
or was it more of an evolving thing?
PB: It’s a slow process; it’s an evolving
CHAPTER 3 Icebergs & paraphernalia
process. What happened was, I also went to
Bali, I saw the rice fields. I wouldn’t know,
maybe now I would, but then I didn’t know
how to translate that yet. But being in
the rainforests and seeing all such variety
of colors and forms, that definitely really
sparked a whole new creative enterprise.
That was also the time I started to do graal,
using this originally Swedish technique in
blowing glass, where you manipulate layers
of color through cutting or sandblasting or
etching or engraving; then reheating it and
blowing it up into the final shape, giving
you the possibility of working with different
patterns and forms and shapes within the
layers of colors. That was a good way of
being able to translate these impressions.
I&P 198
81 x 59 x 13 cm
32 x 23.2 x 5.1”
2010
64
Maybe to some extent it’s nature
imitating art. I don’t know. It’s almost
like an ongoing interaction, a play.
ICEBERG
27 x 36 x 25 cm
10.6 x 14.2 x 9.9”
2013
66
18 x 40 x 9 cm
ICE BRIDGE II
7.1 x 15.8 x 3.5”
ICE CUBE IV
9.4 x 11.8 x 7.5”
24 x 30 x 79 cm
2013
2013
67
ICE CUBE II
20 x 27 x 13 cm
8 x 10.6 x 5.1”
2013
I&P 238
54 x 60 x 18 cm
21.3 x 23.6 x 7.1”
2011
68
Nature is
touching me
in a way that is
different from
what I feel in
I&P 189
42 x 21 x 20 cm
16.6 x 8.3 x 8”
2010
everyday life.
GLASS AND COLOR,
A MARRIAGE OF EXTREMES?
As easy as it seems combining
In collaboration with Michael
colors in blown glass, it is mostly
Behrens lots of experimental casts
impossible in cast glass or so it
were undertaken, largely ending
seems. Talking to Zdeněk Lhotský
up in a bin! With the willing
for the first time in
assistance of the Reichenbach
2002, he shattered
Glass factory, we overcame some
my dreams of multi-
off the issues resulting in a range
colored cast solid
of work in both the Canyons
sculptures. Metal
and Icebergs series, all made in
oxides are being used
Michael`s studio. It is a sheer
to compose colored
delight to be able to fill a mold
glass and are often
with hues of blues, greens and
not compatible as
whites, to create an image that
they have different
resembles the magic of floating
expansion rates. All over the
icebergs in form and shades as
world, glass manufacturers have
can be witnessed under water. It is
tried more or less successfully to
not just a technical achievement.
produce colored casting billets
Much more important, it broadens
that can be mixed. Adding lead to
the creative pallet as well as the
the recipe seems part of a possible
potential of artistic expression.
solution.
70
Filling the molds at Studio Michael Behrens
71
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
72
17 x 54 x 38 cm
6.7 x 21.3 x 15”
2012
I&P 251
86 x 37 x 20 cm
33.8 x 14.6 x 8”
2012, <front and back>
73
LITVAK GALLERY TEL AVIV
PB: I think what’s really important is that, and it’s interesting when you think of art history,
painters many years ago, would try to copy nature; they would use nature and try to represent
it as accurately, copy it as accurately as possible. That is something I’m not interested in, not
at all.
It’s actually a transformation of what you experience looking at nature being in nature,
accepting that you are nature, nature is you, that you’re just a particle of that ongoing
evolution. The transformation of that idea into sculptures are basically driven by the need I
feel, or the desire, to express my fascination with nature.
JR: Without having to replicate, it’s the feeling, it’s the spirit of it, rather than the thing
itself, or the response to the thing itself.
I&P 254
82 x 82 x 16 cm
32.2 x 32.2 x 6.3”
2012
74
PB: A thing that just popped into my mind, just now, is the image of a Bishop from
Giacomo Manzu, the Italian sculptor. When you look at it, what you see, is a big coat with
a hat on, that form represents without any hesitation a Bishop, Catholic, the church,
so form can do that. Form can be extremely strong, as a narrative, telling you a story.
At the same time it can be very intuitive and very sensitive and sensuous and bring you
in a different realm, making you feel different. And I would say, often my work is about
feeling. It doesn’t mean there is not a concept, there is a concept, but it’s very much a
transformation or translation of experience and feeling that will make the sculpture.
Definition, that is important in the sense of… this is the color, that’s the line I want, or
the volume, composition of volumes, the way lines are moving in and out. When working
in glass, all of a sudden you’re working four-dimensional because you can actually look
through the piece and see the back of it at the same time as you see the front of it. You
don’t even need to walk around it, which would cost you time. You can skip time. That is
probably what is, for me, the most interesting, intriguing thing about working in glass.
I&P FOR MARY
I&P 242
I&P 192
52 x 81 x 18 cm
20.4 x 32 x 7.1”
2010
75
39 x 57 x 12 cm
15.4 x 22.4 x 4.7”
26 x 45 x 14 cm
10.2 x 17.7 x 5.5”
2011
2012
76
JR: And it’s in response, like you talked
about it’s a feeling, but it’s also a response
don’t you think?
PB: It totally is, absolutely.
JR: Internalized?
PB: It’s internalized over time because in
the beginning, you’re like a kid in a candy
shop, there’s all these possibilities, so you
get inspired by so much and you translate it
into very different forms. When I look back
at my blown glass for the first 10 years, so
from 1987 to 1997, before I really started
getting into graal work , I went through many
different forms and styles and enjoyed every
bit of it. Some of it was very minimal and
others very exuberant. We went to Venice,
to Murano, to watch master blowers work
in the Venetian technique and of course it
changed my work. Everything continuously
is of influence, which I believe to be a great
blessing for me because as a person I’m
hungry for experience, but as an artist I’m
also hungry to translate experiences into new
forms. For instance the icebergs series could
inspire me for the rest of my life, but I’m
feeling I’m coming to an end of that body of
work. I actually made a piece which is called
“The Last Iceberg”.
I&P 186
67 x 92 x 16 cm
26.4 x 36.3 x 6.3”
2010, <front and back>
77
I started to
really consider
nature as
being an
absolute
expression
of Spirit.
I&P 185
71 x 38 x 12 cm
28 x 15 x 4.7”
2008
78
I&P 219
114 x 126 x 19 cm
44.9 x 49.6 x 7.5”
2011
79
ICEBERGS & PARAPHERNALIA 202
83 x 120 x 19 cm
32.7 x 47.2 x 7.5”
2011
I&P 236
99 x 58 x 10 cm
39 x 22.8 x 4”
2011
JR: Really? How did you know?
PB: I didn’t and I don’t and it’s not the last
piece I’ve done that is inspired by ice because
I’ve made other pieces afterwards because I
still feel new ways, new, well I’ll say phrases.
You’re a man of the word, again word is form
for me in a way there are phrases that I am
still looking at and remembering my trips
to the polar areas that ask for a different
translation. It keeps popping up and when it
pops up and it feels good and feels important
enough, I will turn it into a sculpture, turn it
into a piece of work.
I&P 225
24 x 53 x 10 cm
9.5 x 21 x 4”
JR: Let it take you on a journey which art
2011
does.
PR: Absolutely!
I&P 226
17 x 76 x 10 cm
7 x 30 x 4”
2011
83
84
I&P 235
85
73 x 62 x 12 cm
28.7 x 24.4 x 4.7”
2011
It’s all about
the feeling,
the experience.
I&P 214
38 x 45 x 10 cm
I&P 216
25 x 48 x 20 cm
15 x 18 x 4”
9.9 x 18.9 x 8”
2011
2011
86
I&P 178
35 x 41 x 10 cm
13.8 x 16.1 x 4”
2008
ON CREATING A
TYPE OF GLASS THAT
CAN WITHSTAND
ALL THE ELEMENTS
OF THE NATURAL
WORLD
JR: Talking about the differences of the
works in nature, when did you decide to
kind of do the opposite and say, ‘I’m going
to make this work that’s not just inspired
by the natural world but can withstand the
elements as well.’ When did you decide
to turn that into something that can be
explained in the natural environment,
or when did you think or decide that’s
something you wanted to approach?
I&P 184
87
71 x 38 x 10 cm
28 x 15 x 4”
2009
PB: Basically, the most influential step was
that we found this low-expansion glass in the
Czech Republic that Ruda Banas, who is an
absolute wizard in making colored glass, was
able to color in the most beautiful aqua and
icy blues and blue-green colors. It gave me
the possibility to create a piece, an Antarctic or iceberg piece, that I could put outside
that could be almost like it is given back to
nature, like the icebergs were given to me
when I went to the Antarctic. So in a sense it
only feels natural to see a large iceberg made
of glass standing outside in your garden as
a sculpture. How it responds to the natural
light and the change of the day, the sky, how
it looks different when it’s raining, when the
sun is hitting it, different time of the year.
That is fabulous, because it’s always different,
just always is. Together, with Zdeněk Lhotský
and Ruda Banas we worked several years on
developing new glass that has this low-expansion that enables it to be outside and be
covered in snow, or to be heated up in the
summer sun.
JR: Makes me think of something; how you
said it’s always different and how that’s the
thing itself, the iceberg itself. The mountains here, sometimes you come home and
it’s just red and just burning and it’s acting
like it is art imitating nature. It’s the thing in
itself.
PB: Maybe to some extent it’s nature
imitating art. I don’t know. It’s almost like
an ongoing interaction, a play.
I&P 244
88
72 x 67 x 13 cm
28.3 x 26.4 x 5.1”
2011
I&P 185
34 x 46 x 10 cm
13.4 x 18 x 4”
38 x 42 x 8 cm
I&P 256
15 x 16.6 x 3.2”
I&P 258
18.5 x 12.2 x 3.5”
2009
89
47 x 31 x 9 cm
2012
2012
JR: And that’s something you get only from
glass. I think a traditional bronze sculpture
when placed outside; it has a patina or rust
but it doesn’t have that interplay to the
environment that the glass does.
PB: That is an interesting thing you’re saying
because I’m actually right now thinking
about making shapes in chrome, not in glass
but chrome, probably in bronze or any other
material but then have it chrome-plated. So
what will it do? Here is the difference: if you
look through a piece of glass that is polished,
clear and transparent, you perceive the world
deformed, transformed by that glass form. If
you look at that same form made of chrome,
highly polished or highly polished stainless
steel, for instance, all of a sudden, you’re
still looking at a transformed and deformed
environment in that reflection but you are
part of that reflection. You’ll see yourself in
it as well and you yourself will be deformed.
I’m very intrigued with that and it’s a new
step that I’m going to work on in the years to
come. I’m actually thinking about making the
same form in glass so you can have that specific experience and the same form in chrome
and maybe even also in marble because, then
again, that form has changed and so has your
perception and your experience of it; the way
it makes you feel will change again because
it’s marble.
ICE FIRE
90
50 x 39 x 14 cm
20.1 x 15.4 x 5.5”
2013
I&P 212
78 x 73 x 12 cm
30.7 x 28.7 x 4.7”
2011
91
92
< ICE BRIDGE
41 x 63 x 14 cm
16.1 x 24.8 x 5.5”
2013
ICE CUBE VII
ICE CUBE VI
22 x 35 x 11 cm
8.7 x 13.8 x 4.3”
27 x 30 x 20 cm
10.6 x 11.8 x 8”
2013
2013
93
POLAR LANDSCAPE I
15 x 68 x 51 cm
5,9 x 26,8 x 20.1”
2013
94
POLAR LANDSCAPE II
18 x 121 x 18 cm
7.1 x 47.7 x 7.1”
2013
95
JR: How you respond to it?
PB: Right, how you respond to it, even how
you perceive the form, even though it’s the
same form. I think it’s very interesting.
JR: Oh yeah definitely. Let`s go back where
you were talking about working on the
actual glass itself and getting it to function
outside.
PB: It’s a fabulous achievement of Ruda
Banas. A sort of collaboration we have here,
Studio Lhotsky and myself, where the demand is actually creating this new material.
In this collaboration there is a real innovation
that enables me to do stuff I could never have
done before. Most artists that have made
glass for outside either would use window
glass or glass panels or they would take the
risk that the glass would crack or they would
make it in blown glass, where the glass is thin
enough that the difference in temperature
doesn’t really affect it.
I&P 196
96
87 x 69 x 18 cm
34 x 27 x 7”
2010
I&P 233
46 x 46 x 14 cm
18.1 x 18 x 5.5”
2011
97
45 x 50 x 20 cm
I&P 167
17.7 x 19.7 x 8”
I&P 199
11.3 x 10 x 5.5”
29 x 26 x 14 cm
2008
2010
I&P 243
42 x 61 x 9 cm
16.6 x 24 x 3.5”
2011
JR: Oh right, but it’s still vulnerable.
used to buy this glass from went broke and
we found ourselves without glass. It took
PB: It’s vulnerable but…
several years to come up with a new formula, so to speak, and Ruda, he’s a person who
JR: And did he come up with this type of
has these wild ideas of creating these recipes
glass, or was it another happy accident?
that result into this glass that is totally new,
didn’t exist before. It’s totally in line with
PB: Well no, interestingly enough, we used
what I’m looking for, and to have Zdeněk
to buy clear, low-expansion glass and Ruda
Lhotský and his crew being able to cast these
Banas would color it for me. He would re-
pieces for me, that collaboration has been
melt it adding oxides and the chemical recipe
extremely effective, creative and productive.
that would change that clear colorless glass
And we’ve only just started.
into clear colored glass. The factory that we
I see so many possibilities.
I&P 237
98
52 x 63 x 17 cm
20.4 x 24.8 x 6.7”
2011
ICE I
22 x 36 x 27 cm
8.7 x 14.2 x 10.6”
I&P 197
2011
40 x 89 x 14 cm
15.8 x 35.2 x 5.5”
2011
99
I&P 200
101 x 85 x 19 cm
39.8 x 33.5 x 7.5”
2010
100
ON THE USE OF COLOR
JR: You mention the color of that piece and
I think color is very important to your work
as we talked about before and everything
kind of gets broken down into a form and
color. Talk a little bit about color, working
with this new type of glass and developing
your own colors. I think that’s one thing
that struck me so much about the work
you did at Habatat Galleries is that I knew
that color. It was like the color of sea kelp. I
knew it, like I don’t know what color that is,
but it’s there somewhere.
PB: You also notice that when you look at
that piece the color is different when it’s
thin, it becomes very transparent blue. When
thick, it turns almost green and very murky.
Color is emotion. People mourning in our
culture will wear black; in other cultures it
could be another color, but it has meaning.
When spring is in the air all the women,
men too, but women in general are more
sensitive to it, will walk out the door in these
bursting colors. They all of a sudden change
their clothes, they all of a sudden decide
the sun is shining, let me put on something
yellow, something green, something pink.
We may not think about the emotion, but
intuitively we respond to color. That to me
is very important. When you choose a color,
it’s linked to emotion but it’s also linked to
the concept. It’s like the black piece I told
you about; the fact that it’s black and not
transparent totally changes how I perceive
this piece that’s called Erotica. All of a
sudden, I’m kind of even confronted with the
dark side of erotica, the perversion.
I&P 202
68 x 101 x 15 cm
26.8 x 39.8 x 5.9”
2010
I&P 234
102
76 x 66 x 17 cm
30 x 26 x 6.7”
2011
JR: Just from the color?
PB: Just from the color.
JR: Well it’s kind of true when working with
colors, you don’t know what you call them.
You get a blue or a green.
PB: We actually give them numbers.
JR: Do you really.
PB: Yes, officially I’m colorblind.
I&P 183
ICE II
I&P 177
19 x 34 x 10 cm
8 x 14 x 4”
2008
103
48 x 48 x 10 cm
19 x 19 x 4”
31 x 27 x 17 cm
12.2 x 10.6 x 6.7”
2008
2012
When you
look at
icebergs
they have
40 x 72 x 16 cm
I&P 255
15.8 x 28.3 x 6.3”
I&P 203
24.8 x 17.3 x 7.5”
2012
every imaginable
shape.
104
63 x 44 x 19 cm
2010
I&P 301
47 x 78 x 16 cm
18.5 x 30.7 x 6.3”
2013
105
ICEBERGS & PARAPHERNALIA 191
63 x 79 x 40 cm
24.8 x 31.2 x 15.8”
2010
106
I&P 218
44 x 57 x 19 cm
17.3 x 22.4 x 7.5”
ICE CUBE VII
2011
14 x 28 x 12 cm
5.5 x 11 x 4.7”
JR: Really?
PB: When you have these tests where you
see all these little dots and you have to see
a figure or a number or something, I fail
that every time, but I’m convinced I’m not
colorblind. They said Vincent van Gogh was
colorblind. It doesn’t mean you don’t perceive
color. I do perceive color.
JR: And you do perceive the subtle
differences?
PB: Very much so.
JR: Because that’s very much part of the
work.
PB: Yes, yes.
I&P 252
107
44 x 37 x 9 cm
17.3 x 14.6 x 3.5”
2012
2013
I&P 259
These floating
icebergs
must be ‘His’
sculpture garden.
29 x 107 x 9 cm
11.4 x 42.3 x 3.5”
2012
EYE OF THE GLACIER
52 x 84 x 16 cm
20.4 x 33.2 x 6.3”
2013
109
110
JR: And so, have you created all these
various colors and numbered them or do
they just kind of happen?
PB: This process of creating colors is so
complex, the recipes are secret. All over the
world in glass factories, the recipes they use
for their glass are secret. Nobody will give
you the recipe. Of course nowadays we can
find formula because we share on-line. But
this specific glass, whenever we make a new
batch the color is different, so even if I say
to Ruda, we need more of this color, there is
no guarantee that even though he uses the
same recipe, it will turn out exactly the same
way. This is glass. Though it’s a manmade
material, it’s very much behaving the way
nature is. It keeps surprising you. It’s changing
all the time. And if you can embrace that very
difficult material, very frustrating material at
I&P 267
35 x 56 x 10 cm
14 x 22 x 4”
2013
times, you will find it’s very loyal as well and
very giving.
< GLACIER
78 x 86 x 12 cm
30.6 x 33.8 x 4.7”
2013
I&P 266
111
42 x 58 x 9 cm
16.6 x 22.8 x 13.5”
2013
ICE I
112
28 x 35 x 34 cm
11 x 13.8 x 13.4”
2014
ICE II
39 x 31 x 30 cm
15.4 x 12.2 x 11.8”
2014
114
JR: And It brings things to the table as well.
me the creative process is in making the first
one. The interesting thing is by just changing
PB: It brings things to the table, it opens op-
the color or the way the glass is put in the
portunity, it gives you new clues. The material
mold you change what you will experience,
itself often inspires me, where I will take a
what you will see, when it comes out. For
certain shape, reshape it and use different
instance instead of having a polished surface
glass to create a different experience. So, it
you have velvet, a very soft or structured sur-
becomes a body of work where the concept is
face. It changes what you see even though it’s
the same but the sculptures are kind of trans-
the same shape. It causes a new experience.
formations, ongoing transformations, almost
like a story that you’re telling. Every new one
JR: Every time?
is a new chapter, but it’s one book, one story.
In the beginning I didn’t quite trust myself en-
PB: Every time.
ough to do that. Now I’m much more at ease
with it. I don’t like to do editions because for
< MELTING ICE 4
40 x 42 x 10 cm
15.8 x 16.6 x 4”
2008
MELTING ICE 2
MELTING ICE 7
115
12 x 23 x 17 cm
4.7 x 9.1 x 6.7”
2008
MELTING ICE 3
45 x 36 x 13 cm
17.7 x 14.2 x 5.1”
53 x 34 x 10 cm
20.9 x 13.4 x 4”
2008
2008
> MELTING ICE 12
MELTING ICE II
MELTING ICE I
25 x 27 x 9 cm
9.9 x 10.6 x 3.5”
43 x 38 x 10 cm
16.9 x 15 x 4”
2009
2008
MELTING ICE 10
20 x 20 x 19 cm
8 x 8 x 7.5”
2009
116
56 x 35 x 12 cm
22 x 13.8 x 4.7”
2009
117