Mick Meilahn: Primordial Shift

On View June 1 – September 28, 2025

Artist Spotlight Tour | July 19 at 1pm

Rochester Art Center is proud to present a captivating new exhibition by acclaimed glass artist and third-generation farmer Mick Meilahn. Known for his striking sculpture installations, Meilahn explores the complex relationship between genetic engineering, agriculture, and ecological sustainability—focusing particularly on corn, a crop first cultivated by Native Americans and introduced to Europeans over 500 years ago. A pioneer of the American Studio Glass Movement, Meilahn began his journey with glassmaking in Wisconsin during the 1960s, shaping a career that bridges contemporary art and his deep-rooted farming heritage.

Primordial Shift is a quintessential example of Meilahn’s later installations. It is about change . . . that is, the broad arc of change from early domestication of corn by  indigenous peoples in the area of what is now southern Mexico to genetic engineering 

induced by science in the 20th Century; namely the paradigm shift which enabled  scientists to unravel genetic code of organisms contained in DNA; and the modification  and commodification of plants and animals and implications for consumers. 

Primordial Shift consists of 32 hand-blown glass ears of corn averaging 4’ high  suspended on stalks of cord with leaves of cast bronze, and a backdrop of video  projected to create an illusion of gentle swaying in the breeze. The dimensions of the  installation vary depending upon available space. To replicate a field of corn, best  might be a square space of approximately 30’x30’ hung from a 16' ceiling, surrounded  by video of corn fields on Meilahn’s own family farm projected in the round on gallery  walls, and nestled in surround-sound audio which includes the chirping of birds and  rustling of leaves. 

Primordial Shift is, of course, a work of art. But underlying the artist’s aesthetic is  an agnostic, if not ambivalent philosophy concerning agronomy, in other words, crop  science, and the application of that science by horticulturists to plant production, for the  enhancement and improvement of nature for human and animal life: 

“With today’s sophisticated technology and global positioning, a 24-row corn  planter can plant 500 acres a day with laser accuracy, 35,000 plants per acre with placement exactly 6” apart, and 1 3⁄4 “deep. The instant the seed hits the ground, germination begins. That germination is as primal as it gets. It's everywhere! Just  look. The shift part is engineered; with results that are all so convenient. Is this shift good? You decide.” - Mick Meilahn

In that sense, Primordial Shift along with most of Meilahn’s other installations are not agents for or of change, but rather, artworks which illuminate the pros and cons of genetic modification.

Michael (Mick) Meilahn (b. 1946) grew up on a family farm near Pickett, in Central  Wisconsin. After graduating in 1964 from high school in Ripon where he excelled in art,  he entered the University of Wisconsin-River Falls to study agriculture. He subsequently switched his major to art, after he realized agri-business was not his passion. At UW River Falls he took his first course in glass, and in 1966 he started blowing glass, this at  the same time that Harvey Littleton was running the studio glass program at UW Madison that he made famous by graduating a slew of glass evangelists, the most  famous of which would be Dale Chihuly. As an undergraduate, Mick Meilahn spent a  Quarter abroad working with glass legend Erwin Eisch in Frauenau, Germany (on the  Bavaria/Czech border, an area with a rich tradition of glass making). After graduation in 1971, he spent a year in Bolivia as an idealistic Peace Corp volunteer intent on helping people in South America by sharing knowledge he’d learned from farming. After that he  enrolled at Illinois State University, Normal, where Joel Philip Myers had begun a glass  program, and earned his Masters degree in art.  

Ultimately, though, Meilahn’s roots drew him back to his family’s farm in 1975 where he  and his wife, Jane, raised their children and where he alternately operated the family farm and the hot glass studio he built.  

In time, Meilahn’s passion for art and farming became one-in-the-same as a form of  creative expression. Since 1996, when he turned 50 and began planting genetic seed,  Meilahn’s artwork has focused on genetic modification, which has symbiotically shaped his life and work, both as an artist and a farmer. His installations afford viewers the  opportunity to view and contemplate the production of corn, from the dual perspective of  an artist who knows the subject from life. For the past 15 years or so, this convergence has been the basis for a number of important works.

Meilahn’s choice of corn as an icon is not only relevant to The Midwest where he has  roots, but also to the nation and beyond. The nation’s (and the world’s for that matter)  reliance on corn production is broad. But The Upper Midwest is particularly immersed 

in corn production. In the U.S. the top ranking corn producing states in descending  order of production are: 1. Iowa, 2. Illinois, 3. Nebraska, 4. Minnesota, 5. Indiana, 6.  South Dakota, 7. Kansas, 8. Wisconsin, 9. Missouri, 10. Ohio. In 2016, the nation’s top  twenty states produced over 100 million bushels of corn, 2 billion of which were  produced in Iowa and Illinois (source, NASS/USDA). Whereas corn has personal  meaning and value for Mick Meilahn, corn is broadly iconic these days in terms of food,  agribusiness, and culture. 

Mick Meilahn recently served as the President of The Board of Directors of the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass in Neenah, Wisconsin. He has taught at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina and The Archie Bray Foundation in Montana. His work has been exhibited in the traveling museum exhibitions, Wisconsin’s Glass Masters and Environmental Impact, produced by David J. Wagner, L.L.C., the annual Smithsonian Craft Show, and at The Corning Museum of Glass, which has also featured the artist’s work in its New Glass Review for over four decades.

MICK MEILAHN'S PRIMORDIAL SHIFT, Produced by David J. Wagner, L.L.C., David J. Wagner, Ph.D., Curator/Tour Director