[ARTIST TALK] HYBRID MATERIALS - GLASS CRAFTSMANSHIP AND 3D PRINTING: A CONVERSATION BETWEEN DR TOBIAS KLEIN AND DR FLORIAN KNOTHE

Date: Saturday, 11 July 2020

Time: 3:00pm-4:30pm

Venue: 1/F T.T. Tsui Building, University Museum and Art Gallery, HKU, 90 Bonham Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong (Please enter via the Fung Ping Shan Building and not the T.T. Tsui Building entrance.)

Language: English

Cost: Free admission, all are welcome

The artist talk will be conducted on site (registration required) and via Zoom.

To attend the artist talk on site, please click on this link to register: https://bit.ly/2YQbH1M

To attend the artist talk online, please click on this link to join: 

https://hku.zoom.us/j/92392246606?pwd=MzRwL0dHd0VjU0NMS2xUZ0FpcGxyZz09

Meeting ID: 923 9224 6606

Password: 418846

*Please be ready 5 minutes prior to the scheduled time. 

In 2017, Tobias Klein was invited to be an Artist in Residence at the world renowned Pilchuck Glass School. Three years later, he presented the fruits of his labour with the series Glass Mutations and Glass Entanglement. This talk will focus primarily on the work series Glass Entanglement, as it epitomises an emerging relationship between digital materials and methods and traditional forms of craftsmanship.

Glass Entanglement consists of the physical separation of sections of cellular glass volumes and 3D-printed forms interacting with these single objects to form an ecosystem. The series articulates a method and practice in which the glass can only exist in a 3D scan/3D print—a simultaneous state of digital and actual—simulation and simulacrum taking place simultaneously.

Known primarily for his 3D printed work, these sculptures exemplify how by challenging conventions and traditional techniques, Klein reaps the results that are the hallmark of his large sculptures that reinterpret vitreous material and 3D printed resin. In this conversation, the artist and curator discuss the ‘confrontation’ of traditional craftsmanship with the emerging field of Digital Craftsmanship, highlighting the specific details in which Klein’s work differs from that of traditional glass artists, while discussing the quality of the 3D prints and the unprecedented artforms that this newly established body of work offers.

Artist: Dr Tobias Klein

Born in 1979 in Bonn, Klein is a German Artist/Architect. His works and writings construct the practice of Digital Craftsmanship. He established this operational synthesis of digital and physical materials and tools as poetic (Poïesis) and technical (Technê) expressions. Klein’s works are based on the use of contemporary CAD/CAM technologies with site and culturally specific narratives, intuitive non-linear design processes, and historical cultural references.

His works are exhibited internationally at the London Science Museum, the V&A, The Venice Architectural Biennale, the Science Gallery (Melbourne), The Container (Tokyo), the Bellevue Arts Museum, the MoCA Taipei, Museum of Moscow and Vancouver and in the permanent collection of China’s first 3D Print Museum in Shanghai, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma (USA) and the Antwerp Fashion Museum (MoMu).

Tobias Klein is an Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.

Curator: Dr Florian Knothe

Dr Florian Knothe teaches the history of decorative arts in the 17th and 18th century with particular focus on the social and historic importance of royal French manufacture. He has long been interested in the early modern fascination with Chinoiserie and the way royal workshops and smaller private enterprises helped to create and cater to this long-lasting fashion. Florian Knothe worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art focusing on European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and on European and East Asian glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, before his current position as Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery at HKU.

Image: Glass Mutation V, Tobias Klein, 2020, Nylon (black), 3D print (Selective Laser Sintering SLS), glass (blown), 47 x 33 x 17 cm. © Tobias Klein