Venice 2019 – The traveling event for collectable design has shored to the Italian city bringing together a selection of the world’s leading galleries to celebrate local historic artisan crafts and remaining industries and furnaces. Nomad Venice 2019 coincided with the 58th Venice Biennale Arte and the Biennale of Cinema as well as with Venice Glass Week.

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With regards to the centenary cultural heritage of Murano, Nomad Venice 2019 “has been looking forward to initiate an international survey of the material and its contemporary diaspora through special projects, commissions and collaborations between local craft and global galleries or designers,” explain Giorgio Pace and Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, co-founders of Nomad.

The event took over the recently restored Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel, a 1473 Gothic palace owned by wealthy Flemish textile merchants in the Cannaregio quarter. Guests were welcomed by the Ormeggi special project by Draga & Aurel. Venice’s typical wooden mooring and docking have been reinterpreted in transparent acrylic, coloured resin and a concrete cross.

Glass reigned! Designer India Mahdavi created for Wonderglass a prismatic installation of mirroring sorts capturing the viewer’s attention in multiple directions. Swiss designer Mattia Bonetti has thrown himself into the production of a novel series inspired by Murano glassworks for gallery David Gill.

Milan prominent galleries such as Nilufar and Luisa delle Piane showcased site-specific installations. Rossella Colombari has commissioned Antonio Marras to create sculptures of various sizes and material encapsulating an outdoor vision of the 1950s.

Giorgio Pace Project of Nomad Venice’s co-founder has invited Diana ed Endymion to create an installation dialoguing with Palazzo Soranzo van Axel’s artworks. Giustini Stagetti from Rome presented glasswork by Umberto Riva and Formafantasma.

Among the most prominent international participations also the Beirut-based Carwan Gallery which presented a solo exhibition of Lebanese artist Geroges Mohasseb. The work of Futurist architect Antonio Sant’Elia, Italo Calvino’s Invisible cities as well as decorative functionality and imagined memories inspired the showcase.

Sam Orlando Miller has translated Venice golden hour into furniture design for Gallery FUMI with a chandelier creating garlands of summer tears and a sculptural console projecting the city’s twilight splendor [Read more].

On show also installations by Chamber NYC, the Zurich-based Angela Weber Möbel Athr Gallery from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Mercado Moderno from Rio de Janeiro and more.

All photos by Filippo Bamberghi – courtesy of Nomad Venice 2019.