The Venice Glass Week 2022

The Breath – Francesco Perruccio

From the idea of the artist Francesco Perruccio and the mastry of the Simone Cenedese’s furnace, the sculpture ” The Breath” is born: two lungs, in intense ‘Venetian red’ color, created in order to capture in a work of art the main witness of the pandemic that in recent years has incredibly proved us. So craved in the darkest moments of lockdowns, desperately absent in the frenzy of hospital Covid-wards, suffocated by the harsh necessity of masks: breathing is now impossible to underestimate. Breathing is life, energy, lucidity, freedom, and not forgetting what – symbolically – our lungs have had to face gives us a new unfamiliar sense of humanity and, consequently, the possibility of building a shared hope

Fluid Ocean – Ana Maria Reque

“I conceive my works as reflections of a Recreated Nature: with my works, I always try to raise awareness of the preservation of seas and oceans and, more generally, of the entire spectrum of marine life. To this end, I try to transport equoreal icons, such as Jellyfish, Anemone, Starfish and Corals, into glass and Raku ceramics: the ability of these species to continually renew, evolve and mutate is an endless source of inspiration for me. I also encapsulate in my works the maritime nature of the two great cities of my life, Lima, where I was born, and Venice, where I grew up artistically. In two opposite poles of our planet, I have found many similarities, including the precarious health of one’s marine ecosystem; the most serious setbacks of global warming, such as rising water temperatures and, consequently, the loss of biodiversity of the species that inhabit them, are much more evident in seaside cities. My design depicts such animal species as if they were an ode to hope: it is the ability -specifically- of Jellyfish to remain eternal, albeit ever-changing, that sends a message to the public, as an incentive not to give up and to seek new solutions to safeguard the sea and, more generally, the Earth as a whole.”

–  A.M. Reque

Crossroads of Fate – Tsuchida Yasuhiko

This particular 2022 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of Tsuchida Yasuhiko’s glass art career, who was born in Osaka in 1969 and blossomed in Murano in 1997. The title of the exhibition, organised as part of the sixth edition of Venice Glass Week, is intended to recall the name of one of his collections created in 2012: Crossroads of Fate is not, however, just a title, but also a concept, a philosophy, an inspiration. Crossroads of Fate encapsulates the creative process of this artist, matured over twenty-five years and recounted in this new exhibition, which attempts a synthesis of what Tsuchida has been able to communicate with his art through his creations and collections.

In what he calls “the infinite expanse of space” in his mind, he has collected glances, encounters, signs, emotions and sensations that have left an indelible mark on his being an artist and on his production. The melancholy felt after a chance meeting with an old friend, the profound stillness of a waterbus trip at dawn, the precise pattern of a peacock’s tail, the feeling of smallness under the autumn moon: none of this can be casual, negligible, marginal. In each of these small things, there is a traceable fate, a destiny that unites us as a Whole: with this exhibition, we have tried to collect the moments where Tsuchida Yasuhiko has transformed into art when he has felt part of this Whole, or, more simply, his own crossroads of fate.

Life Connections – Alexis Silk

Body, nature, mind: three different perspectives of the same incredible humanity. Alexis Silk’s subjects aim to analyze the intrinsic connections between man and nature, society and industry, but also between being an artist and the role of art in human dynamics.

Alexis Silk, born in Seattle in 1983, is one of the very few women working with glass in Murano: it is a working environment where the male percentage is clearly predominant, but her creations have been welcomed and admired by the Murano masters and, above all, by the public worldwide. Her works tell how being a woman and being a human is at extremely high levels, pushing the viewer to an introspection towards his own nature. We are, as men, in relation to nature, created and creators: it is an ambivalent relationship, made of exchanges, confirmations, mistakes and responsibilities. The concept that our person is part of a whole before being an individual is fundamental in her art: among her works you can find, for this reason, female busts blooming into flowers, mental flows represented as trees rooting in the hair, hands holding a human heart that is nothing but the symbol of humanity itself.

Her predilection for the female body also stems from the need for reclamation: the figure of the woman is in many ways a point of connection between our humanity and our divinity; it is the synthesis of the tension and interdependence between society and the individual. The human body is the essence of ambiguity: strong, mortal, objectified, sexualized even though it has always been the artistic embodiment of beauty.
Alexis captures these concepts in a masterful juxtaposition of the fluidity of glass and the rigidity of cast iron, her timeless pieces turn into art the endless conversation between personal and artistic growth, nature and human perception.

Extra: reworking of the GAS Conference Murano Italy 2018 exhibition.