de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility Exhibition at the McNay Museum

March 1, 2024 – September 15, 2024
Located in the Tobin Exhibition Galleries

de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility presents works that explore culture on both sides of the United States-México border. Brothers Einar and Jamex de la Torre live and work in the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California, México, and San Diego, California. After developing individual artistic practices they began to collaborate in the 1990s after discovering a shared passion for blown glass. de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility highlights their distinct maximalist aesthetic through four galleries of glass sculpture, lenticular prints, video, and installations.

The brothers use motifs from Aztec mythology, Catholic iconography, popular culture, and art history to build symbolically loaded imagery. Their mixed media works playfully incorporate humor and satire into critiques of consumption and indulgence. de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility embraces contradiction and multiplicity, inviting the viewer to form their own opinions and responses.

de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility is organized by the McNay Art Museum and co-curated by René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs, and Lauren Thompson, Curator of Exhibitions, with assistance from Mia Lopez, Curator of Latinx Art.

The brothers recently completed a separate site-specific installation at the McNay, de la Torre Brothers: Latin Exoskeleton. On view through Sept. 15, 2024, the work transformed the AT&T Lobby wall through a combination of tromps l’oeil wallpaper and lenticular images. Their presentations at the McNay are their first exhibitions in San Antonio.

The de la Torre brothers were featured in the Pilchuck Glass School segment in the COMMUNITY episode.

More images and information here.

ArtDaily.com: ‘Between the Lines’ opening reception opens today at Craft in America Center

Original article on ArtDaily.com here.

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Craft in America Center is opening Between the Lines, a two-person exhibition featuring master glass sculptors John Luebtow and Stephen Edwards. These two maverick sculptors have shaped the field of glass through potent artwork and technical prowess. Constantly innovating, they use glass in ways that defy expectations— bending, casting and cutting it into astounding forms that push the material to its limits. Over the decades, both their intimate and monumental works address relationships with nature, spirituality, and family.

Line is the guiding force shaping the form of each work. Line and form relay philosophical signifiers stemming from the artists’ personal experiences and outlooks. Responding to concepts through abstraction, glass becomes a material for echoing dynamics of the natural world.

This exhibition pairs these two luminaries who are also tied by a teacher/student relationship: Edwards was once a student in Luebtow’s high school art classes. Insatiably curious about process, both artists consistently push the boundaries of technical development and have created significant facilities, both of their own and at institutions. In addition to illustrious art careers, the two masters have been instrumental in creating education programs and facilities in glass, and have taught scores of art students; Luebtow at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, and Edwards at Alfred University in New York.

With more than a century of knowledge between them, these objects are a glimpse at how these artists create abstract forms with powerful, transcendent ideas about beauty, conflict, tension, nature and existence.

John Luebtow has become one of the most respected names in contemporary glass sculpture over the past forty years. He developed innovative techniques in glass-making, introducing and incorporating gestural and expressive qualities into impeccably finished sculptural components. He holds a BA from California Lutheran College, and two MFAs from UCLA (one in ceramics and one in glass).

Stephen Edwards built one of the largest hot glass programs in the nation at Alfred University, where he taught for 22 years. Prior to that, an early stepping stone was working as an artist-in-residence at the Penland School of Crafts. Near Penland, he established his first private glass studio in Micaville, North Carolina in 1982. Edwards graduated from Illinois State University with a Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1980.

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 9, 3:00–5:00pm PST Artist talk: Saturday, April 27, 3:00pm PST

Beverly Press: Craft in America Hosts Two Innovative Glass Artists

3/7/24

Original post in the Beverly Press here.

The Craft in America Center will host “Between the Lines,” a two-person exhibition featuring master glass sculptors John Luebtow and Stephen Edwards from March 9 through May 25.

The two sculptors have shaped the field of glass through their own work and their technological prowess. With a constant desire to create and innovate, they both use glass in ways that defy expectations – bending and cutting to give it shape. They walk the fine line of pushing the material to its limits. Over the decades, they have created work that pertains to their relationships with nature, spirituality and family.

Art begins with the line for both artists. It is the guiding force for shaping the form of each work. Responding to ideas through abstraction, glass is a material for echoing the natural world.

The exhibition pairs the two luminaries, who are also tied by a teacher-student relationship. Edwards was once a student in Luebtow’s high school art classes. Insatiably curious about processes, the artists consistently push the boundaries of technical development and have created significant facilities, both of their own and at institutions. In addition to illustrious art careers, the artists have been instrumental in creating education programs and have taught numerous art students – Luebtow at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles and Edwards at Alfred University in New York.

de la Torre Brothers Retrospective Exhibition

Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective
June 18, 2022–January 22, 2023

This exhibition is a retrospective exhibition of work spanning almost three decades by Einar and Jamex de la Torre at The Cheech, in Riverside, California. Their unique work is based on their Mexican-American bi-cultural experiences,  using a combination of glass, found objects, mixed media, and critical thinking. To learn more, visit riversideartmuseum.org/exhibits/collidoscope-de-la-torre-brothers-retro-perspective.

The de la Torre brothers were featured in the Pilchuck Glass School segment in the COMMUNITY episode.