Venice, 9 – 16 September 2018
The international festival dedicated to the art of glass returns with more than 180 different events including exhibitions, guided tours, conferences, workshops, performances and educational activities.
Comune di Venezia, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Fondazione Cini/LE STANZE DEL VETRO, Istituto Veneto and Consorzio Promovetro Murano present the second edition of the festival that from 9th to 16th September will involve all the main institutions in the city, with several new additions.
From 9 to 16 September 2018, more than 150 participants, with a total of over 180 events across Venice, Mestre and Murano, will take part in the second edition of The Venice Glass Week, the major international festival dedicated to the art of glass, conceived to celebrate the artistic and economic resource for which Venice is famous around the world.
The event is promoted by the Town Council of Venice and conceived by three of Venice’s principal cultural institutions with considerable experience and expertise in the field of glass – Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti – along with the most important trade association, the Consorzio Promovetro Murano, which also manages the Vetro Artistico® Murano trademark of the Veneto Region. This year’s edition has again attracted a large number of participants, with a 20% increase over the first year’s festival.
Hundreds of applications were originally submitted for review and selection by the curatorial committee that was introduced this year, chaired by the Venetian glass historian Rosa Barovier Mentasti, and including critics and curators Chiara Bertola and Jean Blanchaert, journalist and editor of the German magazine Neues Glas Uta Klotz, and chemist, university teacher and expert in the composition of glass materials Marco Verità. The high volume of applications, from foundations, art galleries, museums – among which we note the participation for the first time of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Fortuny and Museo di Storia Naturale -, cultural institutions, universities and advanced education institutes, as well as glass furnaces, companies, artists and private Italian and foreign collectors, confirms the dynamism and vitality of Venice’s cultural scene, and provides a strong indication of the local and international interest in the field of glass.
The rich and expansive programme for The Venice Glass Week festival will involve varied and widespread events across the district, which this year also extends to the mainland, with Mestre now one of its main centres, along with Venice and Murano. The events, most with free entrance, will all have artistic glass as their main theme and be aimed at audiences of all ages: exhibitions, guided tours, conferences, seminars, prize-giving ceremonies, film screenings, educational activities, parties, drinks receptions, open studios and a non-competitive night-time race around the candle-lit streets, canals and glass-furnaces of Murano.
MUSEO DI PALAZZO MOCENIGO‘S PROGRAMME
Installation: Chiara Antonietti – Babette’s Feast
From 9 to 16 September 2018, 10am-5pm, closed on Mondays.
Chiara Antonietti will present in the dining room of Palazzo Mocenigo a site-specific work with objects blown in the furnace and others created using the glass-fusion technique using the “filigree” murrine.
The murrine will be embroidered on the fabric in order to create an uninterrupted “thread” between each object, thereby creating a dialogue between the traditional local handicrafts that are being lost: the embroidery of Burano, the blown glass of Murano and the fabrics of Venice. For years the artist has learned and used the artisan techniques that are at risk of disappearing, such as the ancient techniques of glassmaking and of Burano lace.
Chiara Antonietti was born in Turin and has been working with glass in Murano since 2007.
Installation: Michael Zyw – Noah’s Dream
From 9 to 16 September 2018, 10am-5pm, closed on Mondays.
Noah’s Dream – il Sogno di Noé – is a glasswork inspired by a dream of love for the protection of the earth, people, the environment, of nature and also of the vine. This work is in part abstract and was made in the glassworks of Murano in 2014, it has a very slight similarity to the famous Giovanni Bellini painting Ebbrezza di Noé of which the artist was not aware at the time of creating the glasswork. It is accompanied at the Palazzo Mocenigo by Vineyard, and by Calice 5, necessary for the production and tasting of the wine in this dream! Nascita, 2015, watercolour of dimensions 130 x 200 cms is an homage to Giovanni Bellini and the wonderful creativity of Venetian art over the centuries.
Contributor: Fondazione Bertarelli
Conference: LIGHT ON – AUTONOMA
Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo
13th September 2018, 11am
Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda will be presenting to the public the project of “Autonoma Murano”, which has the mission to preserve and disseminate this incredible tradition of Muranese glass, and at the same time, enrich it further with a diversity of new techniques and ideas.
The program has been developed in collaboration with the Pilchuck Glass School in order to create a place where everyone has an opportunity to discover what Murano is and what the glass tradition is still capable of offering, thereby creating a new link between “tradition and modernity”, between Murano and the rest of the glass world. In this conference Marcantonio will be explaining how the two pilot years have been so far, and what will be the future of this venture.
Discover Musei Civici di Venezia’s complete programme >
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