Master glass sculptor Henry Richardson to speak at The Frost


Richardson’s Tikkun, a monumental chiseled glass sculpture, is on loan to FIU’s Sculpture Park .

The Frost Art Museum is hosting a reception in honor of American master glass sculptor Henry Richardson on Jan. 19 at 12:30 p.m. Richardson will then deliver a lecture at 2 p.m. in Rafael Diaz-Balart Hall, Rm 1100.

Richardson’s renowned sculpture, Tikkun (“Healing the World”), will be on view at the entrance of the Frost Art Museum beginning Tuesday, Jan. 18. The chiseled glass orb measures 6 feet in diameter and weighs approximately 5,000 pounds. It is on special loan to FIU courtesy of his gallery, following its appearance in the first Miami-Miami Beach Sculpture Biennial.

The sculptor says Tikkun’s color recalls the blue-green waters that surround Miami and serves as a medium for interconnecting the city with the rest of the world. Constructed of hundreds of individually chiseled pieces of glass fused together to form a massive crystalline whole, Tikkun invokes both the fragility of our tropical environment and the strength of our diverse community.

Made of commercial-grade glass that is used in the construction of hurricane-resistant windows for residential and commercial buildings, Tikkun is a metaphor for technology’s role in building a safer, more secure world.

Richardson was inspired by the Hebrew phrase Tikkun Olam, translated as “repairing the world.” According to Hebrew oral tradition, the material world was infused with Divine Light at the creation of the universe. As the world evolved, it became broken and the light scattered; the great task of humanity is to reconstruct the unified light present in the beginning. When any one person engages in helping their community, that person becomes part of a collective force that mends the world. The phrase has come to connote social action and the pursuit of social justice.

Tikkun is line with FIU’s Global Learning for Global Citizenship curriculum, which enables students to act as engaged, global citizens.

To RSVP or for more information, contact Melissa Winkler at 305-348-4145 or mwinkler@fiu.edu.

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