Glass for Eternity – the Exhibition of the Young Austrian Peter Kuchler III

This exhibition represents a novelty in the exhibition offer of the museum combined with a great dimension of works and illumination, attracting equally audiences as well as the professional public. The exhibition has been organized for the celebration of the 13th anniversary and the Museum of Ancient Glass Days in Zadar as well as the marking of the International Year of Glass 2022 open to the public until August 20th.

The exhibition curator and author of the catalogue is Jadranka Belevski, higher curator and documentary filmmaker. 

- The Glass for Eternity introduces Peter Kuchler III, a young Austrian artist and glassblower with great experience. Being the third generation of glassblowers in the Kuchler family, he has been working with glass since the age of 14. He says that glass is his life, natural and unavoidable, and thus he naturally and unavoidably recognized the Zadar Museum with a glassblowing workshop as something close to him. It is great to host an artist who sees the glassblowing workshop as his home. He designs and creates, he thinks about the glass art object, but he also shapes and makes it himself. That is truly an additional value. The work of an artist with glassblowers is a legitimate artistic process, but also a glassblower who has been patenting his unique P3 light objects at the age of 25 years is really a stupendous artist characterized by great determination and dedicated work in the difficult conditions of a glassblower’s workshop with a furnace set at 1200 °C –Belevski wrote.

Peter Kuchler III, author of the exhibition is the third generation of glassblowers in the Kuchler family and has been working with glass from the age of 14. As he very often emphasizes, glass is his life, natural and unavoidable and he himself has recognized the Zadar Museum with its glassblower’s workshop as something very close to him. 

He is an artist who designs and creates, contemplates on the glass object, making and shaping it. The work of the artist with glassblowers is a legitimate artistic process, but also a glassblower who has been patenting his unique P3 light objects at the age of 25 is really a stupendous artist characterized by great perseverance and dedication to his work in the difficult conditions of a glassblower’s workshop. Peter Kuchler III proudly points out his origins, because growing up in a family of glassblowers bears great dedication as well as great responsibility. It is this strength and self-confidence that can be read from the works of this artist. 

This young artist emphasizes his luck and gratitude for deriving from a family of glassblowers with 53 years of experience and three generation of work with glass that enabled him to develop his potentials working with numerous world artists. Kuchlerhaus is the biggest Austrian gallery situated in Weigelsdorf.

- The artist himself often calls his work art for eternity, and this is exactly the first impression of his works, something unearthly, part of another dimension, the glass weaving of space and time. This dynamic pattern vibrates through the massive glass sculptures, drawing the observer into a completely different world, a distant but also close galaxy, creating tranquility. Kuchler very often acquires that effect with the precise illumination of each sculpture, be it in the shape of a self-standing illuminated object or glass picture. Illumination has a crucial role in the real presentation of art in glass, and this artist places this in the principal place of his mission. The absolute realization of his artistic idea is the moment when his illuminated glass objects come to life in the interior and offer the observer an atmosphere of escape into another dimension, peace and relaxation, his happy place. The glass abstraction of Peter Kuchler III, his samples and colors that are so real and live and even foreshadowing synesthesia, the connection of all the senses, foreboding even sound, odor and warmth … and from an abstract sample become very structural in the senses of the observer. Kuchler himself defined this as follows: “art is the experience of the senses and understood with the heart “ – curator Belevski explained.

It is important to point out that besides the self-standing illuminated exhibits placed on stainless steel easels and illuminated wall pictures, Peter Kuchler also makes two special types, two concepts Lotus and Phoenix, Belevski remarked. 

- They are illuminated glass sculptures of really impressive dimensions made up of multiple components. Lotus Larimeer is an item made up of a total of 15 components. The central and biggest sphere is in the center, alternately surrounded by seven smaller spheres and as many leaf-shaped glass objects. With a dominant spiral vortex and the P3 specific sample, that grandiose illuminated object really gives the impression of a metaphysical flower. The colors varying from shades of green to blue with admixtures of warm yellow and orange shades reveal the symbolism of the lotus flower that foreshadows divine presence and spiritual purity, but also wealth, fertility and beauty and, above all, eternity. This illuminated wall object of about 2 meters in diameter and weighing almost 200 kg is a brilliant example of the synergy of this artist’s exceptional skills and his vision of beauty and light – she emphasized. 

Museum of Ancient Glass Zadar

Poljana Zemaljskog odbora 1

23000 Zadar, Croatia

MON - SUN: 9 - 21 h