STARMAN: Sixty Years of Exploring Glass

UrbanGlass is proud to present Kosta Boda's celebration of 60 years in artistic partnership with renowned glass sculptor Bertil Vallien through a survey exhibition of the artist’s seminal work.

STARMAN: Sixty Years of Exploring Glass evokes the radiant energy that defines Swedish artist and designer Bertil Vallien’s oeuvre, while acknowledging his pioneering role in elevating glass from a craft medium to a powerful vehicle for conceptual and sculptural expression. The title also nods to David Bowie’s Starman, one of several musical touchstones that inform Vallien’s artistic sensibility. Like Bowie he is a mythmaker who weaves and tells dark fairy tales - Vallien’s are brought to life in glass by his dedicated team at Kosta Boda. His sand-cast sculptures are created utilizing a modern adaptation of ancient metal casting techniques dating back to 2000 BCE. In the mid-1980’s Vallien perfected the process of making compacted-sand molds into which he impresses shapes and sculpts images that will be filled with molten glass. The resulting sculptures deliver rough textured granular surfaces that vibrate with energy as they speak of the immediacy of his process while supporting a symbolist language which nods knowingly towards the Art Brut tradition. Vallien’s storytelling through glass is infused with a musical essence. His works carry a spiritual musicality: forms unfold rhythmically, surfaces resonate like sustained notes, and motifs recur with the logic of a composition. Vallien’s visual language operates as a score, where repetition, variation, and pause shape meaning as much as material and form. About the Artist: Bertil Vallien (b. 1938) is one of Sweden’s most celebrated designers and glass artists—a visionary whose work has shaped contemporary glassmaking for more than six decades. Known for his groundbreaking approach to sandcasting, Vallien transforms molten glass into evocative sculptures that blur the line between myth and material, memory and form. His iconic glass boats, contemplative heads, and surreal landscapes have become signatures of modern Scandinavian art glass, earning him international acclaim. For Vallien, creativity begins with the sketchbook. Drawing is his engine—a world where ideas generate new ideas, and where stories first take shape. The glass itself is his second muse: a material that can both conceal and reveal, functioning as a transparent vessel that allows imagery, symbols, and narrative fragments to live within it. His work is rooted in function as much as expression, and he is deeply committed to sustaining the craft traditions and community of Kosta Glassworks, where he has created since joining Kosta Boda in 1963. Vallien studied at Konstfack, the University of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm, under the legendary Stig Lindberg, graduating as the school’s top student in 1961. Awarded the Royal Scholarship, he pursued further study in Southern California before returning to Sweden to begin what would become one of the longest and most influential artistic partnerships in Scandinavian design history. Over the decades, he has received numerous international honors, including the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ design medal, Imagine Museum’s Artist of the Future award, and the Glass Art Society’s prestigious Visionary Award. Vallien’s work is represented in major collections around the world, including: State Heritage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts. Across continents and generations, Bertil Vallien’s work continues to captivate—a testament to his unrivaled ability to harness glass as both a material and a medium for storytelling. His upcoming exhibition in New York marks another chapter in a remarkable career defined by experimentation, imagination, and enduring artistic impact.

What to expect:
Crafts