Performer at the iDOGI’s event during Venice Glass Week 2023 – Photo by iDOGI.
Art, Design – Venice Glass Week 2023 took over sumptuous palazzos and furnaces with exhibitions and installations celebrating the art of fire and fine glass-making.
- RELATED STORIES: Discover more Venetian architecture and design on Archipanic.
The Floating Furnace
Photo by Venice Design Week.
Moored on the Grand Canal by Campo dell’Erbaria near the Rialto Bridge, The Floating Furnace is a barge decked out with an active glass furnace that hosts a series of free glassmaking demonstrations by some of Murano’s finest glass masters, together with students from Scuola Abate Zanetti. The project debuted in 2020 in times of social distancing. Since people couldn’t visit the furnaces, organisers safely brought the art of glass-making to the public with a travelling show along the canals – Watch the video below.
Distorted Space by Susanna Kóródi
Photo by Archipanic.
At the Venice Glass Week HUB main exhibition at Palazzo Loredan in Campo Santo Stefano, Hungarian artist Zsuzsanna Kóródi presents Distorted Space, a glasswork combining traditional glass-making with cutting-edge digital technologies to create mesmerising optical illusions. Her sculptures come with different glass reliefs that trick the eyes, giving the impression of movement.
Detergent Series by Maria Grazia Rosin
Photo by Archipanic.
Maria Grazia Rosin’s Detergent Series consists of blown glass containers simulating everyday plastic containers of household products. Deprived of their original function, the empty pieces escape the logic of consumption and utility to gain their own aesthetic and symbolic value. On show at the Spazio Sparc gallery in Campo Santo Stefano.
Laura de Santillana at the Gallerie dell’Accademia
Courtesy of Venice Glass Week.
An exhibition with the exhibition. Until November 29, thirty iconic glassworks by the late artist Laura de Santillana dialogue with the spaces and canvas at the Gallerie dell’Accademia. Blown glass cylinders, liquefied inside moulds with the slumping technique, highlight the beauty in the irregularity of matter.
Bohemian masters at the Fondazione Cini
Photo by Enrico Fiorese, courtesy Le Stanze del Vetro.
Le Stanze del Vetro gallery at the Fondazione Cini on the island of San Giorgio pays tribute to the great masters of Bohemian glass. In Czechoslovakia, under the communist regime, glass masters weren’t free to explore new aesthetic paths. Hence, they focused on studying the potential and characteristics of glass as a medium. They applied innovative technological procedures, newly developed shapes and alternative artistic concepts to glass.
Wonderglass explores the potential of the glass block
Photo via IG, follow @wonderglassltd.
At Palazzo Donà delle Rose, Wonderglass presents The Brick House exhibition and workshop exploring the potential of the glass block. On show several projects, including Laura Bethan Wood‘s chained brick structures and Konstantin Ikonomidis’ transparent bricks for the Qaammat Pavilion in Greenland [Read more].
Lino Tagliapietra at Ca’ Rezzonico
Photo by Roberta Orio, courtesy of Venice Glass Week.
Until September 25, Ca’ Rezzonico hosts an exhibition celebrating the life and work of great Murano master Lino Tagliapietra. Through the works on display, the exhibition highlights his technical ability, as well as his unique artistic experiments, following his development from the first phases of his career up to the present day.
Urania by iDOGI
Photo by iDOGI.
iDOGI unveiled Urania, a 2.5-metre-tall self-supporting light sculpture and creature inspired by the Greek Muse of Astronomy and Geometry. The ‘reverse chandelier’ is composed of glass globes that appear to rotate around the main axis, creating orbits with oblique trajectories.
Azoici by Emmanuel Babled with Andrea Zilio
Photo via IG, follow @emmanuelbabled.
The Azoici collection by Emmanuel Babled in collaboration with the experienced Italian master glassblower Andrea Zilio, features matte black and gray surfaces that create a striking contrast with lightly tinted transparent glass, reminiscent of solidified magma in geological layers. The pieces exemplify the challenging and delicate art of designing fluid forms in motion, evoking the merging of earth and water.
Ginkgo Biloba by Venini turns yellow
Ginkgo Biloba (right) by Venini @ Venice Glass Week 2023 – Photo by Venini.
At its Murano showroom, Venini presented its new Ginkgo Biloba capsule collection, now dressed up in a bright yellow colour recalling the golden hues of the oriental tree in Autumn. On display also a lamp designed by the company’s art director Marco Piva and an Art Deco vase designed by Napoleone Martinuzzi in 1930.
