9 Factory Road – Matti Klenell at Galleri Glas

Matti Klenell
9 Factory Road
Galleri Glas, Nybrogatan 34, Stockholm
August 21 – September 20, 2025

Galleri Glas is proud to present 9 Factory Road, a solo exhibition by designer and artist Matti Klenell. At its core lies glass – as material, concept, and motion. Yet the exhibition is equally a meditation on the significance of place, the depth of craftsmanship, and what emerges when time is treated not as an obstacle, but as a necessary condition. The works on display are the culmination of an intensive period of exploration at the legendary Iittala glassworks in Finland – a site that, for nearly two decades, has profoundly shaped Klenell’s creative practice through his award-winning collaborations with the company.

In close dialogue with the factory and master glassblowers Tero Vällimaa and Arto Vilkki, Klenell has spent nearly two years developing a new body of work – where the rigour of artisanal precision meets the fluidity of artistic intuition. The result: a series of sculptures, vessels, and objects in hand-blown glass – technically accomplished, poetically charged, shaped with meticulous care and intent.

A Dialogue Between Material and Memory
9 Factory Road is not merely a title – it is the actual address of the furnace hall where molten glass is transformed. It is also a statement of intent. For Klenell, place has always been a point of departure. Iittala is more than a location: it is a living tradition, once shaped by seminal figures such as Alvar Aalto, Tapio Wirkkala, Kaj Franck and Oiva Toikka. Since 2008, Klenell has returned to Iittala repeatedly, allowing the site to inform his language – a process in which the drawing table and the hotshop merge into a shared vocabulary.

Kaiku – An Echo in Glass
A central strand of the exhibition is Kaiku, a reinterpretation of Klenell’s Still Life series first conceived in New York in 2004. Here, an organic form is encased within a clear, mould-blown glass cube. Through incisions and cold working, the inner object emerges in silhouette – a play of tension between precision and spontaneity, between the controlled and the organic. The new Kaiku works hover between clarity and opacity, asymmetry and balance. Each piece is an echo – of an idea, a place, a gesture.

Revisiting Earlier Themes
The exhibition also includes unique new works that draw upon Klenell’s earlier collaborations with Iittala and its rich legacy – including Birds by Klenell (2010) and the Kokeshi collection (2011). These themes reappear in freer, more experimental form: abstract, figurative vases that frame the flower in a perfect circle; glass shapes stretched and broken, reflecting their lineage while being transformed by it. A conversation unfolds between past and present, between mastery and play.

An Exhibition that Was Allowed to Take Its Time
9 Factory Road is the fruit of an almost three-year collaboration between Galleri Glas and curators Anna Bromberg Sehlberg and Elin Forsberg. Together, they have embraced a slow and deliberate process – in which each object, surface and spatial encounter has been shaped with care. This is what lends the exhibition its rare character: not merely the materials themselves, but the time, experience and dialogue that have shaped them.

“It doesn’t feel like returning to something, rather, it feels like closing one door and opening another.” says Matti Klenell.