Murano glass shines again on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. It does so with an exhibition, which becomes double, dedicated to two great artists. The famous Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala which connects the Italian art of Murano glass with the great international art. The Italian architect Toni Sugars who began his relationship with glass when he was still a young architecture student. The parables of two artists present in the Murano furnace both at the same time and at different times, especially in the second half of the XNUMXs.
Two parallel exhibitions to tell about two Murano experiences that have left an important mark on the artistic world. Witness the fact that this project, like others that preceded it, made use of as many as 37 different lenders who made precious objects from their collections available to Le Stanze del Vetro to outline on the one hand the artistic path that in those years characterized the production of Venini. On the other hand, the art - applied to that very special material which is Murano glass - by Tapio Wirkkala and Toni Zuccheri.
Tapio Wirkkala: the cold colors of Nordic glass blend with the bright colors of Murano glass
We start with joy, it really should be said, given that the first exhibition room of the designer Wirkkala is entitled “Ai lieti calici”. It is dedicated to six models of colored transparent glass goblets. They dialogue with five models of two-colored vases and with the Meduse series presented at Venice Biennale Part 1966. The shades are cold, the result of contamination - not only in the colors but also in the thickness of these objects - between the world of Nordic glass and the typical Murano works by which the Finnish artist was fascinated. He was struck in Murano by the lightness of the glass, the bright colors, the use of different techniques. This fascination becomes a profound relationship for Wirkkala and Venini.
The communication between the artist and the master glassmakers took place through the drawings that Wirkkala made almost everywhere, on paper (on display there are interesting testimonies) but also on the floor, on the walls ... The glass masters did not know English but they knew the language of human and artistic relationship. Which with the Finnish designer often translated into moments of simple conviviality, between one job and another, eating together what the Murano ladies prepared for their husbands. Unusual are the "gondolier hats" which had a notable commercial success. The series of dishes obtained with different techniques is extraordinary, often using large murrine.
The bestiary of Toni Zuccheri
Toni Zuccheri arrives young at the Venini to create a glass bestiary that was presented at the 1964 Biennale. And the bestiary is one of the most important chapters of the exhibition dedicated to him, where (it should be said) an extraordinary phoenix dominates. It is one of the very few existing examples and is majestically placed in a kind of chapel with a gold background. In this guessed setting we find hoopoes, lapwings, owls, many ducks. Unpublished animals in polychrome glass, or glass and bronze. The curator Marino Barovier tells us that Toni Zuccheri went around the furnace collecting pieces of glass, even in the middle of the scraps, looking for what to place where. For example, the countless elements that make up the body of the turkey or guinea fowl on a bronze skeleton bear witness to this.
Alongside this chapter, which is the best known and most important, Zuccheri drew inspiration from the plant world for the creation of original opaque glasses with intense colors such as Trunks. The Ninfee series, on the other hand, was created for the production of chandeliers. In reality, these precious and refined objects lend themselves to different interpretations for the beauty of shape and colors. The artist also works with the architect Gio Ponti for the construction of famous large windows, one of which is masterfully reproduced in the exhibition.
The collaboration of Tapio Wirkkala and Toni Zuccheri with Venini is one of the answers that the Murano glass art tried to give to the new needs coming from the design world of the Sixties.. And both of these artistic personalities strongly contributed to characterize Murano glass. Which did not give up its being but was enriched with new proposals. The exhibition project Tapio Wirkkala at Venini and Toni Zuccheri at Venini it is accompanied by two distinct monographic catalogs (edited by Skira) edited by Marino Barovier and Carlo Sonego.
(ph credit: Enrico Fiorese)
