ST. PETERSBURG - Glass breaks, even, and perhaps especially, if it is art.
Workers who are installing an elaborate exhibition of Dale Chihuly's studio glass in the Museum of Fine Arts have discovered a piece damaged in shipping, and it's likely that one or two more will be lost in the installation process.
"The Chihuly people always expect that," said David Connelly, the museum's director of public relations. "This is something they always prepare for in these large installations."
Chihuly Across Florida opens to the public Jan. 18, along with another exhibition of the 62-year-old Seattle artist's work at the Orlando Museum of Art.
It will take about a week for 11 people from the Chihuly team to assemble the glass installations, which arrived from Seattle carefully packed in roughly 500 boxes.
Connelly said damage to one piece of an installation cannot be compared to, say, breaking a priceless Ming vase.
"We're not necessarily talking about the full work of art that is damaged," Connelly said, although the sculptures involve several hundred components and are expensive as a whole.
"These large installations comprise a great many pieces of glass. They expect that a small piece may get cracked. That's why they pack extra pieces in the event of breakage."
The museum incurs no claim on its insurance policy, nor does it discuss the value of any of the works on display therein.
"The policy of the museum is that we never comment on the price," Connelly said.
To ensure that no profiteers have access to even the damaged work, Connelly said: "The head of the installation team takes it and smashes it into very small pieces so that no one could ever take it as a souvenir. It is destroyed so that it could never circulate as a work by Chihuly."
Not that museum officials want visitors to kick the tires on the exhibit, figuratively speaking.
If you go
WHAT: Chihuly Across Florida: Masterworks in Glass.
WHEN: Jan. 18-May 30
WHERE: Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg, and the Orlando Museum of Art, 2416 N Mills Ave. Hours at the Museum of Fine Arts are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday; and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.
COST: Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and college students, $5 for children 7-18 and free for children younger than 6.
LEARN MORE: For information, call 896-2667 or visit www.fine-arts.org For information about the Orlando Museum of Art, call 407 896-4231 or visit www.OMArt.org[Last modified January 7, 2004, 06:00:43]
