Really extraordinary the glass Ark landed on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, in the well-kept and refined headquarters of Le Stanze del Vetro. Rich in every animal species to almost envy the most famous of Noah. But also rich in art, imagination, colors, shapes, under the only denominator of a material, glass. Not just any glass, but that glass that has come out of the island's kilns since ancient times Murano and that the glass masters have been able to model declining it in innumerable and singular shapes and styles.
In the twentieth century, since the beginning of the century, the attention of designers and artists working in the furnace has focused not only on murrine, chandeliers, vases, goblets but also on small and less small glass sculptures that reproduce an original bestiary. Initially conceived mainly as a souvenir, revisited today by art criticism, and not only, which recognizes in these objects one of the aspects of the great Murano artistic production.
The collection, and the exhibition, are the result of Pierre Rosenberg's particular passion for Murano glass animals
This particular artistic value had already been intuited by collector Pierre Rosenberg, historical director of the Louvre of Paris, which in times when this kind of glass production was thought almost as a kind of furnace divertissement, had developed a particular passion for glass animals. Passion that led him to create, in thirty years of Venetian visits, a collection as vast as it is original. The exhibition The glass Ark. Pierre Rosenberg's collection of animals it partially but fully accounts for it with 750 pieces on display. From an original chandelier that looks like an octopus to tiny ants and tiny insects made with the full-scale lampwork technique. Passing through elephants and dogs, hippos and cats, giraffes, mammoths, bears and parrots, turtles, foxes, and then many fish and marine animals because in Murano, and in Venice, they certainly could not be missing.
The interpretations of the various animal subjects that Pierre Rosenberg has chosen from time to time not only for the fame of the furnace of origin or for the artist who signed the glass object are endless and very often captivating. But also following his particular personal taste, without prejudice toattention to the technical and artistic quality of each small and large sculpture. The characteristic pulegoso glass animals that he created in the Thirties could not be missing Napoleon Martinuzzi, or the birds of Tina Lundgren or Toni Sugars, all made for Venini. As well as the zebra stripes of Barovier and Toso and the aquariums of Alfredo Barbini. But the collection, and the exhibition, also offers a vast sample of lesser-known and equally interesting glassworks for what represents the technical and formal experimentation of twentieth-century Murano.
A singular and appropriate set-up for the glass Ark exhibition which has landed in Venice until August 1st
A separate chapter deserves the installation, curated by Denise Carnini and Francesca Pedrotti, young set designers who have lent themselves to tell about this glass zoo. Which is a bit outside the box of the traditional exhibitions that Le Stanze del Vetro have proposed in recent years. Outside the box because Pierre Rosenberg's bestiary, from room to room, is contextualized by the sounds of the jungle, the chirping of birds, the dull sound of the sea waves. And it is a calling and speaking to each other, from one area to another, of this glass fauna that dialogues with visitors. Involving them with sounds and settings created ad hoc for each different type of animal species. Inviting them to stop and admire the beauty of so many objects of intrinsic value in and of themselves. And from the value that derives from their being, together, protagonists of this exhibition and this collection.
The glass Ark. Pierre Rosenberg's animal collections will be open until August 1st. It can also be visited digitally thanks to the new 3D virtual tour accessible, both from desktop and mobile, by connecting to the site www.lestanzedelvetro.org. The exhibition is curated by Giordana Naccari and Cristina Beltrami. It is accompanied by a catalog, published by Skira, which opens with an interview that is very revealing of the collector's spirit. To continue with some insights from the curators, by Jean-Luc Olivié, curator of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and by Rosa Barovier Mentasti.
(ph credit: Enrico Fiorese for Le Stanze del Vetro)
