Venice: Le Stanze del Vetro – I Santillana exhibition. The superb exhibition, I Santillana, at Le Stanze del Vetro, until August 3, traces the
double trajectory of artists Laura de Santillana and Alessandro Diaz de
Santillana, brother and sister who are direct descendants of the legendary Venini dynasty. The siblings live and work in Venice where
both have been developing, since the end of the 1980s, a body of work, which
has come to achieve international recognition.
Above. Laura de Santillana and Alessandro
Diaz de Santillana are reflected in Alessandro’s wall sculpture Senza Titolo
(MUDAC), 2011 – hand-blown and mirrored glass on plywood with silver leaf.
Photograph by Fabio Zonta courtesy Le Stanze del Vetro
I Santillana. The exhibition brings together
approximately 170 works including sculptures, artworks and glassware selected
from a period of more than two years of meetings and conversations between
Martin Bethenod and the siblings. The works on display investigate the diverse
yet intertwined dialectic of the two artists, each following an autonomous
artistic path but both relying on a common family heritage and biography.
Above. Installation view room 5 in the foreground sculptures by Laura de Santillana and on the wall Alessandro Diaz de Santillana’s wall works.
Laura de Santillana – Senza Titolo (cristallo MoG) – 2009
Hand-blown and shaped glass with metal base
I Santillana – Press conference. Martin Bethenod, CEO of the
Francois Pinault Foundation, Laura de Santillana, P. R. Elena Casadoro,
Secretary General of the Giorgio Cini Foundation Pasquale Gagliardi and
Alessandro Diaz de Santillana.
Photograph by Fabio Zonta courtesy Le Stanze del Vetro
I
Santillana. The exhibition is organized
around a central axis representing their shared memory. The galleries of Le
Stanze del Vetro have been adapted in order to enable a comparison and an
ongoing dialogue between the works of the two artists. The central corridor named
La Rue serves as a meeting point between the worlds of Laura de Santillana and
Alessandro Diaz de Santillana and creates a cross-play of connections and
references, but also of disagreements, though never forced nor far-fetched but
rather revealing of the formal similarities, the peculiarities and differences
between the artistic works and creative processes of Laura and Alessandro.
Above.
Alessandro Diaz de Santillana - Installation view of Room 7. Alessandro Diaz de
Santillana - S5 – 2013. Hand-blown glass and slumped glass. Patina. Marine plywood and black lacquer.
Marie-Rose Kahane,
Chairman of Pentagram Stiftung and Pasquale Gagliardi, Secretary General of the
Giorgio Cini Foundation.
I Santillana – La Rue. Laura de Santillana – Mon Malheur,
2009. Cast glass with metallic textile. Mon Bonheur, 1998. Jasmin garland in
plexi box.
I Santillana. Laura de Santillana places Grey CU, 2005, hand-blown
and shaped glass on the table.
I Santillana – La Rue. Alessandro Diaz de Santillana –
C.DI.S.XIII, 1993. Hand-blown and ground glass.
I Santillana – La Rue.
A portrait of Laura and Alessandro’s mother by Richard Meitner – Anna
Venini, 2004. Hand-blown glass, flat glass, enamels, wood.
Photograph by Fabio Zonta courtesy Le Stanze del Vetro
I Santillana. Alessandro Diaz de Santillana - Installation
view of Room 6. HG and HGS, 2011 series. In the center, Senza Titolo, 1996.
Hand-blown and mirrored glass. Below - HGS 5, 2011. Hand-blown, slumped and mirrored
glass on plywood.
Neo director of the Giorgio Cini Foundation’s Institute of
Art History Luca Massimo Barbero and member of the Scientific Committee for the
I Santillana exhibition has fun with the president of The Venice International
Foundation Franca Coin.