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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

SS
ACT

94

Davira Taragin
combines two
loves —art
objects and
history — as a
glass curator at
the Toledo
Museum ofArt.

SUZANNE CHESSLER

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

avira Taragin's workdays are absorbed with
contemporary crafts, while her free time of-
ten is spent antiquing. Perhaps that's be-
cause her interest in art is based in the
cultural history art objects represent.
Taragin, curator of 19th- and 20th-
century glass and special exhibitions at
the Toledo Museum of Art, brings her
time-rooted perspective to a lecture
scheduled Friday, May 10, before the Na-
tional Early American Glass Club.
Her focus will be the work of glass artist
Dale Chihuly, whose most encompassing
exhibit is housed at the Ohio museum that
became her employer in 1990.
"Dale Chihuly is very controversial, and we think
it's important that we talk about how he pushes the ma-
terial beyond what other artists do with it," said Tara-
gin, whose audience will leave its convention site in
Dearborn to view the Toledo collection.
"He's been revolutionary, making us rethink our tra-
ditional concepts of glass. In the late '60s, he was one of
the first American studio glass artists to go to Venice and
focus on the team approach to glassmaking, which he
brought back to America.
"He also introduced the technology that allows blown
glass to have extremely thin walls and encouraged its
molding into large sculptural forms."
The trip that brings convention participants from sub-
urban Detroit to Toledo is not unfamiliar to Taragin. She
drives a similar route every weekday to pursue career
goals.
Taragin, comfortable with a daily commute she insists
can be quite beautiful in the summer, also is comfortable
with the way the museum is traveling into the world of
contemporary glass.
"I moved from the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) to
the Toledo Museum of Art because there was the chal-
lenge of building up a brand-new area," said Taragin,
whose 12 years at the DIA were domi-
Aated by her assignment as curator of Davira Taragin
left the DIA to
20th-century decorative arts and design.
develop the
"Fm responsible for maintaining and
building the glass collection. I research 19th- and 20th-
century glass
and make recommendations for acquisi-
collection at
tions, and I'm also responsible for orga-
the Toledo
nizing special exhibitions involving the
Museum
materials.
of Art.
"We're not trying to isolate the glass.
We're trying to put it within the context of the 20th cen-
tury: ,
Taragin, who does not include glass art in her per-
sonal collection because it might be construed as a con-
flict of interest, never made glass her ongoing specialty.
"I look at glass in terms of developments in all con-
temporary craft media, which include clay, fiber, metals
and wood," said the historian.
Through the exhibits she sets up in Toledo and through

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