Tim Tate, Oracle, 2009. Blown and cast glass, electronics, original video. H 16, W 8, D 8 in. courtesy: the artist
Nicholas Bell, curator of the Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, said the recent acquisition of a multi-media work by Washington, D.C.-based artist Tim Tate represented a big step for an institution dedicated to showcasing one-of-a-kind handmade pieces because it includes an industrially made video screen as one of several elements.
“To accession an object that includes mass-manufactured technology is huge for us,” Bell told the Hot Sheet in a telephone interview. “It allows us to take the conversation about how craft interacts with a digital society to a new level as people get to experience Oracle in our gallery.”
According to Bell, Tate’s work will “soon” be installed in a second-floor gallery named “Cabinet of Curiosities,” where Oracle will take its place alongside work by William Morris and Dan Dailey, among others.
“We have made many efforts to connect to our community in a museum that preserves the handmade,” Bell continued. “Aside from the technology that the video is displayed on, the video is very much made by hand through a stop-motion technique.”
For Bell, Tate’s mix of the antiquated bell jar — a relic of the Victorian era that embodied the eagerness to categorize the natural world — with the thoroughly everyday object that a small LCD screen has become in our own era, is a rich contrast that creates “an interesting dialogue where you have the handmade glass with one of the most mass-produced technologies in the world.” For Bell, this raises important questions that speak to our time.
“How does that comment on our relationships to the industrial and digital world, which, through its overbearing nature. has separated craft as separate from the strict manufacture of objects?” he asks.
Bell says that many aspects of this work attracted him to it when he saw it displayed at SOFA CHICAGO last November. He felt a certain nostalgia for the Ouija board game referenced in that work. And he appreciated the almost Steampunk marriage of new and old technologies. But what might have sealed the deal was watching the crowds around the work during the Friday at SOFA when high-school students visit the art expo.
“Kids would line up and stand there, watch it, trying to figure out what it’s spelling,” says Bell, who added that the screen spells out the words “create” and “inspire.” He continued: “It was something we thought would connect with not only our base, which is glass collectors, but when we have student tours going through, they might recognize that this is based on one of the most loved, long-lasting games.”
Editor’s Note: The original posting of this article stated that Oracle would be installed by the end of January. This was changed at Bell’s request.
IF YOU GO
Renwick Gallery 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. (at 17th Street)Washington, D.C. 20006
Telephone: (202) 633-7970
Website Map of location Hours: 10 AM – 5:30 PM daily
Admission: Free
Andrew Page on Glass 
Absolutely awesome….