CORNING, NY.- Coinciding with the presentation of Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro- Perspective, The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) has commissioned brothers and artistic duo Einar and Jamex de la Torre to create a new, large-scale work for the permanent collection. From May 6 to May 19, 2024, the brothers were in residence at the Museum to create glass elements for the new mixed-media work, which will be installed during the special exhibition celebrating their artistic practice. While at CMoG, they collaborated with the Museum’s Hot Glass Team to create a new work in their distinctive and colorful style. Visitors had the opportunity to watch them working in daily live shows and livestreamed sessions. The exhibition opened on May 18, 2024, and the commissioned work will be installed in the fall.

The commission, currently planned at monumental scale, is inspired by Aztec calendar stones, a motif that the de la Torre Brothers have been exploring since the early 2000s. The wall-mounted, circular sculpture will be 12 feet in diameter—one of the de la Torre Brothers’ largest works of this kind to date. Composed of different blown-glass elements created in the Museum’s Amphitheater Hot Shop, backlit lenticular panels and prints, cast resin elements, and a series of purchased elements, the materials will be applied in a series of concentric circular designs, in as many as four layers, to an aluminum base structure.

CMoG’s Collidoscope installation is the first scheduled viewing on the East Coast and is the only one that provides an opportunity for the brothers to work on site prior to the exhibition opening. The exhibition deeply focuses on the de la Torre Brothers’ gallery work, one prong of their three-pronged approach to their practice, which also encompasses large-scale installation and public art. The CMoG commission is a unique fusion of all three categories, pushing the boundaries of what gallery work can be when created in close collaboration with a museum as a site-specific work.

“This commission will be an opportunity for us to embrace the things we love most about working with glass,” said Einar. “Glassblowing is a spontaneous spectator sport that necessitates collaboration with other talented craftspeople. We have sketches and ideas, of course, but this commission is going to be a product of its birthplace and a ‘shoot from the hip’ artistic mentality—the resulting piece will be entirely unique to CMoG.”

“Einar and Jamex’s work presents complex identities through the medium of glass, connecting found and made objects in an evolutionary approach,” says Tami Landis, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Glass at CMoG. “Their vibrant mixed-media pieces expand our understanding of how contemporary glass artists can reflect works will join the permanent collection of the Museum to delight and challenge visitors for many years to come.”

Encompassing almost three decades of work, Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective highlights the brothers’ artistic production. Many elements of the exhibition, including the title, echo the creative process of the artists, serving as an allegory of their intellectual pursuits, their technical use of materials and media, and their use of wordplay and poetic riddles in the titles of the work. Their bicultural identities inform their mixed media works and aesthetics which often combine pre- Columbian iconography with modern Mexican cultural hallmarks. The pair also cites religious iconography, German expressionism, and Mexican vernacular arts as influencing factors.

CMoG celebrated the opening of the exhibition on Friday, May 17, in a two-part art party that featured a special talk reuniting the de la Torre Brothers and Selene Presiado, who curated the debut of Collidoscope at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (The Cheech) of the Riverside Art Museum in 2022 and the subsequent travelling show. Guests had the chance to mingle with the brothers, purchase signed exhibition volumes, and preview the exhibit before its public opening on May 18. The exhibition at CMoG is made possible through a collaboration between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino and The Cheech.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the de la Torre Brothers moved to the United States as children and have collaborated artistically since 2024, the 1990s. Their practice is notable for its additive, evolving approach that results in layers of thematic depth and meaning in each finished piece. Today, they live and work on both sides of the border, splitting their time between San Diego, California, and the Guadalupe Valley of Baja California, Mexico.