{"id":15985,"date":"2025-09-26T08:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/?post_type=magazine&p=15985"},"modified":"2025-09-26T08:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:29:12","slug":"the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The Venice Glass Week: when glass becomes art"},"content":{"rendered":"From 13-21 September 2025, Venice, Murano, and Mestre hosted the ninth edition of The Venice Glass Week, this time focused on the magic of glass, the undisputed protagonist of a festival that has always brought together the artistic language and the traditional practice of glassmaking. Artisan craftsmanship and contemporaneity are the guiding principles that orient the programme of the event, which is promoted and organized by the City of Venice, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, LE STANZE DEL VETRO \u2013 Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Stiftung, the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, and Consorzio Promovetro Murano. Hundreds of applications to participate were received from 54 countries around the world, and the selection process was overseen by a scientific committee chaired by Rosa Barovier Mentasti and composed of Nina Alessandri, Cristina Beltrami, Jean Blanchaert, Rainald Franz, Mikkel Hammer Elming, Susanne J\u00f8ker Johnsen, Cristina Tonini, and Alma Zevi.
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\r\nThe selected projects were presented in two HUBs, with group exhibitions featuring international artists and designers selected through the open call. Fifty established and mid-career artists were the focus of The Venice Glass Week HUB<\/em>, staged in Venice, as usual, at Palazzo Loredan, home of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. The group show The Venice Glass Week HUB Under35<\/em>, curated by Stefano Coletto in collaboration with Marta Gradenigo, was dedicated to thirty emerging designers and was held at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa\u2019s Piazza San Marco Gallery.
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\r\nAmong the many associated exhibitions, we would like to highlight Storie di fabbriche. Storie di famiglie. FRATELLI TOSO<\/em> [Stories of Factories. Stories of Families. FRATELLI TOSO], open until 24 November 2025, in the Spazio Ex Conterie of the Murano Glass Museum, and 1932-1942 Il vetro di Murano e la Biennale di Venezia<\/em> [1932-1942 Murano Glass and the Venice Biennale<\/em>], curated by Marino Barovier at LE STANZE DEL VETRO on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, open until 23 November.
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\r\nAt the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia, meanwhile, until 24 November, the spotlight is on the glass creations of Tristano di Robilant. Curated by art historian Cristina Beltrami, the exhibition sparks a dialogue between Tristano di Robilant’s contemporary sculptural works and the masterpieces held by the Venetian institution. We asked the curator to tell us more about it and to comment on the ninth edition of The Venice Glass Week.
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THE INTERVIEW WITH CRISTINA BELTRAMI<\/h2>
\r\nThe Tristano di Robilant exhibition at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia in Venice interacts consciously with the space in which it is displayed. How did you structure this dialogue, and what characteristics of Tristano di Robilant\u2019s works made it possible?<\/strong>
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\r\nFirst, and it may seem trite, we spent a long time among the paintings, having a deep look at the collection, the possible placements of the sculptures, the light falling at different times of day\u2026 we literally spent time with the works and reread the histories of these masterpieces. The exhibition also has a strong narrative vein: stories are sketched out in the interaction between space, sculpture, and artwork. Sometimes the dialogue is direct, as is the case with La Lumera<\/em>, a magnificent layering of glass elements inspired by the Dante quote in Canto IV of the Inferno<\/em>, displayed next to the Reliquary<\/em> of Cardinal Bessarione, a theologian and one of the greatest men of letters of the fifteenth century. Or Ombrosi chiostri<\/em>, another literary reference, from the book Rime<\/em> [Rhymes] by Torquato Tasso, who longed for peace in those horti conclusi<\/em> that can be found in the Gothic panels on the first room. In other cases, the references are more complex, as in the case of Poeta<\/em>, a soaring sculpture in ros\u00e9<\/em> mirrored glass (I think a digression is needed here: in Murano there is no universal and shared nomenclature for colours, rather, each furnace names its own colours), which to some extent modulates the imperceptible chromatic shifts of the Giorgiones in the room.
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\r\nGlass is almost a \u201cliving\u201d material in the hands of Tristano di Robilant, proving that a technique and process with a long history can speak the language of contemporaneity. How do the sculptures exhibited at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia fit into the present?<\/strong>
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\r\nThere\u2019s no \u201calmost\u201d, glass is a living material by its very nature; it is a \u201cthing\u201d that changes state, that mutates, sometimes even after years, and that allows for a margin of unpredictability that is lowered the more experience the master handling it has.
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\r\nIn fact, it is not the hands of Tristano di Robilant that shape the glass directly, but those of the master to whom the artist entrusts his idea following long discussions, sketches on paper, chalk marks directly on the iron table and even on the floor of the furnace to provide the exact dimensions for the base of the piece.
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\r\nThe relationship between artist and master is extremely close, a true symbiosis that hinges on a rare and fragile balance, and that is the reason we often mention Andrea Zilio and Andrea Salvagno, who have worked alongside Tristano in recent years.
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\r\nNow I will address the second question: Tristano\u2019s works are contemporary not just because they were created in the present but above all because they probe the collection, placing it under an original and unexpected gaze.
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\r\nAlchimista d\u2019Oriente<\/em> [The Alchemist of the East<\/em>] is an emerald glass sculpture with an etched crystal top that almost traces a visual diagonal with an identical figure from the canvas of the Martyrdom of Saint Mark<\/em>. Meanwhile, Cippo<\/em>, with its bright orange glass, placed on a balcony of the Palladian cloister, draws attention to the monumental Gothic head attributed to Marco Romano, which, precisely because it is outdoors, would risk going unnoticed.
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THE TRISTANO DI ROBILANT EXHIBITION IN VENICE<\/h2>
\r\nThe exhibition is part of The Venice Glass Week, now in its ninth year. As a member of the scientific committee, what, in your opinion, makes the event so attractive, and what significance does this event have for the city of Venice, as well as for Murano and Mestre?<\/strong>
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\r\nRegarding the weight and significance of the event, I believe numbers are easier to understand than long speeches: this edition of The Venice Glass Week saw applications from 54 countries, counting more than 300 participants, and over 200 events spread out across 130 venues between Venice and Mestre.
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\r\nSome are connected to public institutions, but most are private initiatives: together, they constitute the festival\u2019s broad reach, which is also its great strength. In recent years I have seen a growing openness to less conventional glass offerings and also \u2012 very importantly \u2012 I have noticed a growing awareness of the importance of historical archives. Once neglected or even lost by the furnaces, they are now treated as an asset that ought to be preserved and shared in a complex mosaic of scientific reconstructions of the history of Murano glass. What Fondazione Cini\u2019s Glass Study Centre has been doing for many years comes to mind, as well as of initiatives by individuals like Caterina Toso or NasonMoretti in Murano.
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\r\nVenetian galleries are mobilizing with ad hoc glass projects. This year, for example, the Marignana is hosting a selection of rare chalcedony glass pieces curated by Giulio Malinverni and Francesca Vacca. I\u2019m also thinking of an established brand like Giberto, which entrusted the latest generation of the Barbinis of Murano with the creation of a futurist-inspired mirror and, above all, had the courage to open a high-quality glass shop on the Rialto Bridge, in part with the aim of revitalizing an area overrun by mass tourism.
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\r\nSo Venice has good reason to be proud of its Glass Week!
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\r\nInterview by Arianna Testino<\/strong>","protected":false},"featured_media":15929,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categorie_magazine":[343],"class_list":["post-15985","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie_magazine-words-from-marte"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Venice Glass Week: when glass becomes art - Marsilio Arte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Interview with Cristina Beltrami, curator of the Tristano di Robilant exhibition at the Gallerie dell'Accademia included in The Venice Glass Week 2025\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Venice Glass Week: when glass becomes art\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Interview with Cristina Beltrami, curator of the Tristano di Robilant exhibition at the Gallerie dell'Accademia included in The Venice Glass Week 2025\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marsilio Arte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/040-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/\",\"name\":\"The Venice Glass Week: when glass becomes art - Marsilio Arte\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/040-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-26T06:29:12+00:00\",\"description\":\"Interview with Cristina Beltrami, curator of the Tristano di Robilant exhibition at the Gallerie dell'Accademia included in The Venice Glass Week 2025\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/the-venice-glass-week-when-glass-becomes-art\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/040-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/040-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"Tristano di Robilant. 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