Fondazione Berengo - Glasstress

07/04/2022

🔥Koen Vanmechelen returns to Murano!🔥

After their successful debut at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the thirty fantastical creatures created by .vanmechelen from striking combinations of Murano glass and Carrara marble return to the setting of their origin: the island of Murano.

Handcrafted last year with the support of the glass masters of Berengo Studio, the artworks will be exhibited as part of the “In Città” section of 2022. For the occasion, in addition to the Medusas, serpentine chickens, horned iguanas, and the other mystical creatures seen in Florence, several never-before-seen pieces will be on display for the first time including the captivating Formula Segreta chandeliers: two complex works that reflect on the origin, decay and regeneration of all living things, and are intended as a tribute by the artist to the history of Murano glass. 

Join us tomorrow for the opening of the exhibition, which will be held in conjunction with the vernissage of SottoVetro, a group show "Made in WonderGlass" curated by Jean Blanchaert. 

BURNING FALLS
by Koen Vanmechelen
08.04 – 15.05.2022
Tue - Sun 10am - 5pm 

📍Fondazione Berengo Art Space
Campiello della Pescheria 4
30141 Murano (VE)

⏰Opening
Friday 8th April 2022 from 6 to 9 pm
In the presence of the artist

26/11/2021

𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐘 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐆: 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐎𝐗𝐈𝐃𝐄
𝐃𝐚𝐥 𝟑 𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏 𝐚𝐥 𝟏𝟑 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐳𝐨 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐
𝐌𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐨, 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐕𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨

Una quarantina di opere, alcune totalmente inedite, compongono SILICON DIOXIDE, la nuova personale di TONY CRAGG in programma al Museo del Vetro di Murano dal 3 dicembre 2021 al 13 marzo 2022. L’allestimento ripercorre inoltre le tappe più significative del percorso dell’artista inglese, con anche sei assemblages, storici lavori di grandi dimensioni dove Cragg accosta oggetti e accumula piccoli gruppi di cose. Il quadro offerto dalla selezione di sculture in mostra riproduce con fedeltà la visione artistica di Cragg e la sua capacità, unica, di comunicare attraverso il vetro, materiale del quale ha sempre saputo valorizzare le geometrie intrinseche. L’esposizione è a cura di Berengo Studio in collaborazione con la Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia.

Fondazione Berengo - Glasstress

20/10/2021

"The question is are you wrapped rigidly in the cloth of your time or can you fly out of it?" - Sean Scully

We often think of time as a linear notion, a line with a beginning, a middle, and an end. In his vivid paintings Sean Scully uses lines to dramatic effect, stacks of colour interlock and order each other, reconfiguring conceptions of space and time in vivid pigments. Transforming his oeuvre into three dimensions we find a tower at the heart of Window to the Future. A block of Murano glass that sits upon another, colour after colour after colour. These supposedly simple contrasts add up in the work of Sean Scully. Through glass, colour is given a body, a physical presence that sits with power outside of the painterly dimensions for which Scully is so well known. A dynamic world of perpendicular lines is softened by these shades somehow, enhanced, and renewed. A tower becomes more than simply the parts from which it is made, it becomes a collective force, a united identity. Time no longer feels like a simple line, here it has depth.

📸 Image courtesy of Svetlana Ragina

Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Official page.

19/10/2021

“During the pandemic I feel that relinquishing control of outcomes has served me very well. I can continue to be inspired by nature and by adaptation to change.” – Anne Peabody

🌊Today we’re taking a closer look at the work of American artist  at Window to the Future at the State Hermitage Museum in Russia. This mesmerizing piece, titled "Black Waterfall", uses the image of a secluded cascade that the artist visited while hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Months later, after downed powerlines near the site sparked one of the deadliest and destructive wildfires in the Eastern United States, Peabody reimagined the scene. To create the sculptural drawing she adhered sterling silver leaves to plate glass, then marked the surface with her fingertips, allowing oils from her skin and contaminants in the air to oxidize the metal. The result is a ghostly, mirror-like image that enables a viewer to transport themselves into the setting. The captivating glass construction plays with ideas of mirroring and illusion, enticing an audience into a surreal world, while also inviting them to invent a new one for themselves. Peabody's works are altered by their surroundings but also by their audience, they not only reflect the world but encourage a vital interaction with it. 

📸 Image courtesy of Valentina Khrebtova 

11/10/2021

🍾 A series of classic glass coca-cola bottles sit intertwined in a rectangular structure, the signature curves of the bottles twisted and manipulated into a new form. This work, by the artist César Baldaccini, is called ‘Compression’. It's a title that conjures further ideas of constriction and pressure, both mechanically and emotionally. In a post-lockdown world the artwork has taken on new meaning, with the concept of compression garnering much from intense days in which many were housebound, and the shape of so many lives altered by unexpected and unprecedented restrictions and limits. 

🇫🇷The concept of compression is one that fascinated César's work for many years. Born in Marseille to Italian parents in 1921 he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the city from 1935 to 1939 and later at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before settling there in 1943. It was a time of intense artistic community, with César meeting and mingling with the likes of Alberto Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and Jean Paul Sartre. As time went on he began to experiment with his own sculptural work in iron, these experimentations evolved and by 1960 he had created his first "compression" by repurposing car scraps and shaping them into ordered linear packs. In the same year he joined the Nouveaux Réalistes group, mixing with artists like Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Jean Tinguely, and Pierre Restany. For an artist who was always part of creative community, it feels fitting his work in glass is on display with several other artists as part of Window to the Future. In the background, you can see works by Cornelia Parker and Polly Apfelbaum. We’ll be talking about them in more detail soon…

📸 Image courtesy of Svetlana Ragina

06/10/2021

🐟 So many people at the Hermitage have been touching these captivating glass animals we've had to put extra measures in place to keep them safe! Originally exhibited as part of Glasstress in Venice the sculptures were shown just around the corner from the famous Rialto fish market, we can't help but think it was part of the inspiration for this lifelike installation.

🎣 Created by British artist Charles Avery, the work "Untitled (Ninth Stand #1)" represents a stall in one of the markets in the capital of the imaginary island of Onomatopoeia. The island's bodies of water are home to a species of eel - a favourite delicacy of the locals. The young ones with translucent amber bodies are considered the tastiest; they are fried right outside and eaten whole, while large ones are tasteless, but cost less.
⠀
🏝 Since 2004, the imaginary island has become the focal point of the artist's work. Through various artistic mediums, Avery describes the topology, cosmology and inhabitants of this unique place. Over the past 15 years, the author has revealed a variety of aspects of islander life - architecture and philosophy, mathematics and economics, leisure and tourism - through paintings, texts, and installations.

📸 Images courtesy of Svetlana Ragina

Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Official page.

05/10/2021

"Glass is one of humanity's greatest artistic inventions."

Thank you exibart for this article on at the State Hermitage Museum!

https://www.exibart.com/arte-contemporanea/da-murano-a-san-pietroburgo-in-mostra-all-ermitage-larte-contemporanea-del-vetro/

Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Official page.

Da Ai Weiwei a Laure Prouvost, fino a Ilya ed Emilia Kabakov, in mostra all'Ermitage di San Pietroburgo 50 opere d'arte realizzate in vetro di Murano

04/10/2021

🦟 Mondays with Marya Kazoun! Today we're taking a closer look at the artworks in Window to the Future at the State Hermitage Museum. Here you can see Kazoun's 'Memphis Squad', her spectacular azure installation featured at the centre of the exhibition. 

❄️ "The Memphis squad stands against all forms of contempt." Kazoun notes in her text for the catalogue, "they are there to restore order and safety." A vivid futuristic vision the congregation of mantises are realised in an unexpected but mesmerising shade of blue glass. The cool icy tone can be attributed to Kazoun's fascinating backstory for the creatures, which stages them as a mutation inspired by the harsh conditions of a new frozen world caused by global warming and climate change. 

📸 Image courtesy of Valentina Khrebtova

     

21/09/2021

Window to the Future is now officially open! A huge thank you to everyone who made this exhibition possible and to the incredible array of artists who have contributed to this 2021 edition.

Here you can see the moment the ribbon was cut by contemporary artist Marya Kazoun who acted as an ambassador for all the members of Berengo Studio who were unable to attend the opening ceremony in person. You can also see contemporary artist Koen Vanmechelen with his sculpture as well as some of the beautiful new sculptures in glass by .

What a joy to still be able to bring the wonder of art in glass to an international audience even at the height of such a difficult year.

The exhibition "Glasstress. Window to the Future' will run until 31 October 2021 at The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Official page.

📸 Photos: .gavrilova.photo

10/09/2021

GLASSTRESS. WINDOW TO THE FUTURE. OPENS TODAY!

Join us this evening for the opening ceremony of the exhibition online using the link below at 18:00 (that’s 17:00 in Italy and 16:00 in the UK). ⬇️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rrG_SZLM4s

From September 11 to October 31, 2021, the exhibition of contemporary artists who have created artworks in glass will be held at the Main Headquarters of Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Spanning more than ten halls, the show includes the monumental spaces of the White Hall, as well as the chamber spaces of the Red Halls.

Fifty-one artists' works will be presented at the Hermitage exhibition, including works by Renate Bertlmann, Tony Cragg, Laure Prouvost, Jan Fabre, Ai Weiwei, Koen Vanmechelen, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, and Jaume Plensa. The wide range of international artists will allow Hermitage visitors to discover how the traditional glass techniques of Murano have been brought into the world of contemporary art, and how glass as a medium continues to surprise and revolutionise artistic thinking.

The exhibition is curated by Dmitry Ozerkov, head of the Department of Contemporary Art, Yelisei Zakharenkov - junior researcher of the Contemporary Art Department and Olga Kozhura. While Koen Vanmechelen features as the Art Director. The exhibition is held within the framework of the project ′′Hermitage 20/21", designed to collect, exhibit, study the art of the XX-XXI centuries.

Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Official page. Berengo Studio

В Главном штабе Государственного Эрмитажа с 11 сентября по 31 октября 2021 года пройдет выставка современных художников, выполнивших свои произведения в стек...

09/09/2021

to installation days! The State Hermitage Museum is almost ready. This beautiful work by never fails to make us smile with its commentary on the very nature of the installation process. A normal scaffolding is reborn in clear glass, a monument to the sublime and surreal transitional states of assemblage that every art exhibition must go through. Glasstress is coming.

📸 Image courtesy of

Frith Street Gallery Государственный Эрмитаж. The State Hermitage museum. Official page.

08/09/2021

🚨Breaking news🚨

The next edition of is underway with a very special
collaboration with The State Hermitage Museum. Get ready for “Glasstress. Window to the future”.

Today we're taking a look at a very special delivery, looking in closer detail at how some of our prized collaborations with contemporary artists managed to travel all the way to Russia. Here you can see a stunning piece by Joana Vasconcelos in situ as it makes its way from Murano all the way to The State Hermitage Museum in a vibrant red crate. A member of the Hermitage team is caught labeling the precious cargo to make sure it arrives in the correct place safely.

Art has always traveled but our international exhibition has certainly helped to ensure that great art made in glass has a platform around the world, with editions cropping up at a number of prestigious locations. Our older followers might remember when we last collaborated with The State Hermitage Museum in Russia for Glasstress Gotika, which saw contemporary artists respond to items in the Hermitage collection as part of the Venice Biennale in 2015. This year we're mixing it up and bringing the wonders of Murano to Saint Petersburg. Stay tuned for more...

📸 Image courtesy of the Hermitage