All too often, the relatively young field of contemporary studio glass has been guilty of the victimless crime of being too pretty and void of intellective substance. But as evidenced in the current group show at Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery, it is becoming clear that, as the field progresses, artists are beginning to invest their works with more involved theory and practice. Take, for example, the work of Michael Rogers, whose entirely sculptural works of colorless glass are rife with historical and literary references. Rogers, who showed works influenced by James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" at the gallery last year, has returned to the gallery with five new works that reference everything from alchemists to Ovid's "Metamorphoses." In addition to being a much-sought-after educator (he will take on the position of head of the glass department at the Rochester Institute of Technology later this year), he has been making glass for the past eight years in Japan, where he established a studio, Studio Shihokusa in Seto, in addition to being an associate professor at Aichi University. His years in Japan have influenced his work quite heavily and are best summed up with the use of an ever-present, stark figure that coldly stares forward with blank, round eyes. This is Mr. Roboto, alternately traveling through historical, mythological and literary worlds, as in "Cat's Cradle," where the figure holds a cat's cradle string configuration between its hands, onto which Rogers has tied Omikuji (fortunes written on slips of paper sold at temples and shrines all over Japan), or in "Through the Labyrinth," where the figure has a brass lock and key imbedded in its chest and is suspended above a pile of metal printer's type and iron filings inside a vessel engraved with text (in Latin) from "Metamorphoses." Like Rogers' work, the recent work of Toshikazu Kobayashi also includes figures, which is no surprise considering Kobayashi was a student of Rogers'. What is surprising is that the forms in which the figures are enclosed are round, clear-glass vessels that have been topped with colorful, semi-realistic dog and cat heads. In this way, "You have the human being the slave of the pet," says Amy Morgan, owner of the gallery. Although the concept is obvious in the cat and dog pieces, in "The Key of Spirit," a fourth piece included in this show, the idea is more nebulous. The piece consists of a clear, lone figure sitting in a clear-glass sphere that Kobayashi has accentuated with the inclusion of a small keyhole in the back of the figure and a sandblasted pattern on the sphere that has been rubbed into a dark patina. Both elements are similar to those in Rogers' pieces. The affinity to Rogers' work is too apparent here, and the piece is too stylized to have the same impact. However, this piece is an opportunity for dialogue, simply because contained within it is the classic struggle between mastery of technical skill and presentation of concept. Can powerful statements be made with such an inherently beautiful medium• Kobayashi comes to his own defense in his artist statement, where he writes: "In the future, I would like to use living things with glass as a means of directly combining with nature." Now there is an idea! Another artist who is struggling with this is Philip Crooks, who makes small, truncated figures in cast glass that, Morgan says, are influenced by "the spirit of man" and the cave paintings at Lascaux in Dordogne, France. Although beautiful in color and interesting in texture, Crooks is relying too heavily on an overused theme of the 20th century, that of the primal. From Picasso to James Brown (the painter, not the singer), we have seen this all too often. But perhaps it is the remaining two artists in this exhibition whose work most successfully bridges the gap between theory and process. In Gary Andolina's work, the glass is treated in the purest sculptural sense, with considerable heft and highly contrasting textural relationships. He does this with minimal effect. The two pieces in this show are rectangular blocks of cast glass that have alternating bands of highly polished, slick surfaces and crude, sand-infused indentions. Morgan says these are some of Andolina's smaller works. They will leave you longing to see the bigger ones. Andolina's pieces in this show are mounted on the wall with metal brackets. This is a sufficient device that many contemporary glass artists have been using lately to present their work, but none has done it quite as effectively as Susanna Speirs. In fact, Speirs is one of the few glass artists working today who successfully combines glass and metal. And she does this in the subtlest way, using a variety of handmade mounting hardware and thin steel cable to suspend her surprisingly realistic, cast-glass pears. The pears themselves are symbolic representations of female forms, which in these five works are supported by masculine hardware. More than embodying contrasting relationships, however, these pieces represent that, in contemporary glass, techniques and concepts are beginning to effectively fuse.

'Gallery Artists'

Recent works by Gary Andolina, Philip Crooks, Toshikazu Kobayashi, Susanna Speirs and Michael Rogers. Through April 2. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery, 5833 Ellsworth Ave., Shadyside. (412) 441-5200.

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