A floating furnace at Rialto, open ateliers, guided tours, cocktails, and fashion between Venice and Murano: the events of Venice Glass Week, the International Festival of Glass Art, continue until September 13
In Venice, Murano, and also in Mestre, the International Glass Festival opens museums, art galleries, and Venetian furnaces to promote and support one of the city’s most important and historic artisanal and creative activities, the art of Murano glass. Among the many events, here is our selection:
On tour
The Venetian travel design and international events agency Nexa has created The Venice Glass Week Tours itineraries to offer the public the opportunity to discover Venetian masters, artists, furnaces, and workshops. For example, the tour on Friday, September 11 leads the public to meet young master glassmakers and families who have been working with glass for centuries in furnaces unique in the world. Alessandro Moretti (Costantini Glassbeads) played among crates of beads as a child; the historic Salviati furnace has been producing glass objects for 150 years; Luciano Gambaro and Matteo Tagliapietra are the mind and hand of an innovative artistic glassworks.
The tour on Saturday morning, September 12 connects glass art and fashion: a glass artist-artisan will create lampwork beads live in one of the most important fashion locations in Venice, the atelier-workshop of Giuliana Camerino, the designer who launched the Roberta di Camerino brand. In the archive of the “Lady of Fashion,” we will discover original bags, belts, scarves, and dresses with Nexa, and meet her daughter Roberta and granddaughter Tessa. Book your tour
In the canals
The Floating FurnaceThe Floating Furnace, the performance promoted by the Consorzio Promovetro Murano and sponsored by Compagnia Energetica Italiana, brings a furnace and a Murano Master glassmaker to the Venetian canals to promote the #MettiamociIlCuore campaign.
Thursday, September 10 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, the furnace will be in Campo dell’Erbaria at the Rialto Market.
In the palaces
Three appointments between art and glass on Thursday, September 10, 2020 at Palazzo Contarini Polignac:
The conference “Murano-Istanbul: A Glass Making Journey II” with Vera Costantini (Ca’ Foscari University) and Luca Molа (Warwick University) from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM.
The opening of the exhibitions The window says to me by Tristano di Robilant and Art and Honeybees in the Time of Quarantine by Judi Harvest at 7:00 PM. The American artist created a honey garden in Murano and studied the movements and activities of her honeybees, intelligent and spiritual animals.
We will discover her works and 76 watercolors on handmade pink paper on Thursday, September 10, 2020, from 7:00 PM at the Edmond à Venise space in Palazzo Contarini Polignac.
Onde e toni (Waves and Tones) is the dual solo exhibition by Martin Daske and Leonardo Cimolin curated by VeniceArtFactory at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory. Until September 12, 2020, one of the most beautiful rooms on the noble floor of Palazzo Pisani, San Marco 2810, will host the silent dialogue between the neon works of the German artist and composer Martin Daske and those in glass and concrete by the Italian artist Leonardo Cimolin.
Venetian Love: Aristide Najean, Didier Guillon, and Silvano Rubino let love transform their creativity into energy, giving life to a collective performance guided by joy. In homage to the majesty of the host city, Didier Guillon has added a masterpiece to the exhibition: Death in Venice, by Luchino Visconti.
On the Island of San Giorgio
Among the many events listed on the official The Venice Glass Week website, the exhibition Venice and American Studio Glass at Le Stanze del Vetro (open to the public until January 10, 2021), curated by Tina Oldknow and William Warmus in the splendid location on the island of San Giorgio, is not to be missed.
On the Island of Murano
The exhibition Unbreakable: Women in Glass, curated by Nadja Romain and Koen Vanmechelen, is open until January 7, 2021, in the evocative space of the Fondazione Berengo in Campiello della Pescheria on the Fondamenta dei Vetrai in Murano. In an ancient furnace, the urban archaeological context serves as a backdrop for a wide range of works from the Berengo archives and a series of new works created for the exhibition. The exhibition features over 60 contemporary female glass artists from Europe, the United States, Latin America, Iran, and South Korea.
“Unbreakable: Women in Glass is a metaphor, a paradox, and a symbol to explore the intimate relationship that women have with glass in the heart of Murano,” says curator Nadja Romain. Curator Koen Vanmechelen states: “It is time to name the mythical icons – artworks that inspire other artworks, signed by women, so that history can no longer be stolen. The invisibility and transparency of glass can shape a new generation by healing the scars of history.”
British design stars pay tribute to Murano glass art with WonderGlass, which supports the work of master glassmakers in a London/Venice twinning between innovative creativity and artisanal tradition. Until September 13, London Venice: The Spirit of Resurgence brings five glass works created pro bono by great UK designers to the spaces of Murano Gallery AB 4.0 at Calle Vivarini 6 in Murano: John Pawson, Kim Colin of Industrial Facility, Ross Lovegrove, Tom Dixon, and Bethan Laura Wood.
WonderGlass also presents Marea, a project in collaboration with the Swiss design studio Atelier Oï: an evocative scenography created with latest-generation lighting elements that, moving among themselves, recall the flow of water. A tribute to the city of Venice and its resilience over the past months.
Glass and Theater
La Donna del Fuoco (The Woman of Fire) is a theatrical performance featuring actress Chiarastella Seravalle, the result of a journey of historical and anthropological research and the stories of the bead-makers (perlere). The life of Marietta Barovier, a figure of the 15th-century glass renaissance, the first female entrepreneur to own a furnace, an alchemist, experimenter, and creative, to the point of being considered the inventor of the queen of Venetian beads: the Rosetta, also known as the Chevron.
La Donna del Fuoco, Friday, September 11, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM. Corte dell’Arte, Calle del Cafetier, Castello 6482.
Info and bookings: info@arte-mide.com and www.arte-mide.com. The performance is free of charge.
THE VENICE GLASS WEEK
#TheHeartOfGlass
The international festival dedicated to the art of glass, fourth edition
Until September 13, 2020
The photos are a selection of images from past editions and from 2020 of The Venice Glass Week, ph. Op-Fot.
Courtesy of The Venice Glass Week.
