Josiah McElheny

Career In earlier works McElheny played with notions of history and fiction. Examples of this are works that recreate Renaissance glass objects pictured in Renaissance paintings and modern (but lost) glass objects from documentary photographs (such as works by Adolf Loos). He draws from a range of disciplines like architecture, physics, and literature, among others, and he works in a variety of media.

McElheny has mentioned the influence of the writings of Jorge Luis Borges in his work. His work has also been influenced by the work of the American abstract artist Donald Judd.

McElheny has also expressed interest in glassblowing as part of an oral tradition handed down generation to generation. He has used the infinity mirror visual effect in his explorations of apparently infinite space. His work also sometimes deals with issues of museological displays.

One of the artist's ongoing projects is "An End to Modernity" (2005), commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University. The piece is a twelve-foot-wide by ten-foot-high chandelier of chrome and transparent glass modeled on the 1960s Lobmeyr design for the chandeliers found in Lincoln Center, and evoking as well the Big Bang theory. was shown in New York City in 2008. Later that year, the series culminated in a massive installation titled "Island Universe" at White Cube in London and in Madrid. In 2019 the installation was exhibited at Stanford University's Cantor Center for the Arts.

Exhibitions Solo exhibitions 1990 – Jägarens Glasmuseet (The Hunter's Glass Museum), Arnescruv, Sweden, 1993 – originals, fakes, reproductions, William Traver Gallery, Seattle 1994 – Authentic History, Robert Lehman Gallery, Brooklyn, New York 1995 – Stephen Friedman Gallery, London 1995 – Installation with Ancient Roman Glass, Ancient Mediterranean and Egypt Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1995 – Donald Young Gallery, Seattle 1996 – Barbara Kraków Gallery, Boston 1997 -Non-Decorative Beautiful Objects, AC Project Room, New York 1997 – Three Alter Egos, Donald Young Gallery, Seattle 1999 – The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle 1999 – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston 2000 – Christian Dior, Jorges Luis Borges, Adolf Loos, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago and Brent Sikkema, New York 2001 – Metal Party, Public Art Fund, New York 2001 – Metal Party, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco 2001 – Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas 2002 – Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2003 – Theories About Reflection, Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York 2003 – Antipodes: Josiah McElheny, White Cube, London 2004 – Total Reflective Abstraction, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago 2005 – An End to Modernity, Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2007 – The 1st at Moderna: The Alpine Cathedral and the City-Crown, Moderna Museet, Stockholm 2008 – The Last Scattering Surface, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle and Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minnesota 2008 – Das Lichtklub von Batavia/The Light Club of Batavia, Institut im Glaspavillon, Berlin 2008 – The Light Club of Batavia, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago 2008 – The End of the Dark Ages, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York 2008 – Island Universe, White Cube, London 2009 – A Space for an Island Universe, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid 2009 – Proposal for a Chromatic Modernism, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York 2012 – Some Pictures of the Infinite, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2016 – The Ornament Museum, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna 2017 – The Crystal Land, White Cube, London 2017 – Prismatic Park, Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York 2018 – Island Universe, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston 2018 – Cosmic Love, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago 2019 – Island Universe, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford 2019 – Observations at Night, James Cohan Gallery, New York 2021 – Libraries, James Cohan Gallery, New York

Awards 1993 – Betty Bowen Special Recognition Award, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington 1995 – Award Winner, 1995 Biennial Competition of The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, New York 1998 – Bagley Wright Fund Award, Seattle, Washington 2000 – The 15th Rakow Commission, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York 2005 – Artist-in-Residence Award, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio 2006 – MacArthur Fellows Program

Permanent collections Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago di Compostela Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Corning Museum of Glass, Corning Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Moderna Museet, Stockholm Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Modern Art, New York Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Tate Modern, London Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Books Josiah McElheny: A Prism. Skira Rizzoli International, 2010. . The Light Club: On Paul Scheerbart's 'The Light Club of Batavia'. University of Chicago Press, 2010. .