Exhibition dates: 18 May 2013 – 5 January 2014
Symbolizing power, enabling ornamentation, and facilitating trade, glass beads are miniature masterpieces that have played significant roles throughout time and across cultures. This major exhibition explores glass beads and beaded objects made by various cultures, representing 3,500 years of human history. Life on a String: 35 Centuries of the Glass Bead will showcase many important works from the large historical glass bead collection of The Corning Museum of Glass as well as objects on loan from seven institutions.
Life on a String will explore the use of glass beads for fashion and ornament, as symbols of power and wealth, as traded goods, and as objects of ritual, as well as illuminate the processes of beadmaking and beadworking. Highlights of the exhibition include early Venetian chevron and millefiori beads, Roman mosaic beads, West Africa bodom beads, Egyptian eye beads, Chinese horned eye beads, Japanese magatama beads, Bohemian beads imitating precious stones, North American beadworked garments, and contemporary beaded objects by Joyce Scott and David Chatt.
For more information, visit the website of the Corning Museum, NY, USA.