Le Stanze Del Vetro - 1948-1958 Murano Glass and The Venice Biennale - Exhibition - Party Photos

"...an extraordinary period of freedom, inventiveness, and enthusiasm..."

Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore - Le Stanze Del Vetro 

1948-1958 Murano Glass and The Venice Biennale  

Exhibition - Party Photos

At Le Stanze del Vetro - on the island of - San Giorgio Maggiore - just across from Piazza San Marco and Palazzo Ducale - the exhibition - 1948–1958 Murano Glass and the Venice Biennale - curator - Marino Barovier - until 22 November. This third chapter in the Murano glass series explores the postwar return of the Venice Biennale, highlighting the creativity and renewed energy of Murano through historic furnaces, new workshops, and independent artists during a decade shaped by economic growth and emerging design culture.

The glass exhibitions of this period reflected the renewed vitality of Murano’s production, in tune with the dynamism of the 1950s economic boom and the rise of design culture. Over 160 works illustrate an extraordinary era of freedom, inventiveness, and enthusiasm, marked by new interpretations of ancient techniques, experimental processes, and exploration of colour and surface.  Many pieces are transparent, from heavy sommersi to light blown glass, with rich hues and forms ranging from Nordic-inspired geometry to soft, irregular lines. Others, worked in solid glass, stand out for their sculptural quality and remarkable plasticity.

Aureliano Toso/ Dino Martens - 1950-1956

David Landau, Francesca Nisii and Marino Barovier

Alberto Toso & C./ Vinicio Vianello - 1954c.

Vinicio Vianello - Scoppio or Esplosione a Las Vegas - 1952

Silvia Dainese 

Vinicio Vianello - Esplosione Nucleare or Atomico - 1952c.

Vinicio Vianello -  Torre Vegetale - 1952

Gino Seguso

Archimede Seguso - 1952

AVEM - Giorgio ferri - Giulio Radi - 1952

Giorgio Vigna

Barry Friedman

Alfredo Barbini - 1950

Historic Glassworks played a central role, including Venini/Fulvio Bianconi and Paolo Venini -  Barovier & Toso/Ercole Barovier - Seguso Vetri d’Arte/Flavio Poli - Aureliano Toso/Dino Martens - see above - Fratelli Toso/Ermanno Toso AVEM - Giulio Radi - Giorgio Ferro - Anzolo Fuga - and the engraving firm S.A.L.I.R.  The Venice Pavilion also featured newer furnaces such as - Gino Cenedese - and workshops founded by master glassmakers Alfredo Barbini and Archimede Seguso. At the same time, artists including Ezio Rizzetto - Anzolo Fuga and especially Vinicio Vianello a leading member of the Spatialist Movement using glass as a tool for expressive exploration.

Aureliano Toso/ Dino Martens - 1952-1953

 France Thierard and Emma Dunaud

Massimo Micheluzzi

Seguso Vetri d'Arte/ Flavio Poli - 1950

Luca Giannola and Antonio Dei Rossi

Manuela Luca Dazio

Barovier & Toso/ Ercole Barovier - 1952c.

Venini/Fulvio Bianconi - 1951-1952

Judi Harvest

Venini/Fulvio Bianconi - 1947-1948

Kit Garis, Leif-Erik Hannikainen, Camilla Purdon, 

Nicolo Castellini Baldissera  and Lisa Hilton

Venini/Paolo Venini - 1954

Aureliano Toso/ Dino Martens - 1954

Dino Martens - drawing for Fermento - Turmoil -vase

Aureliano Toso/ Dino Martens - 1951

Rosy Kahane, Marino and Marina Barovier

Isola di San Giorgio – Monumental Complex

Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Palladian courtyard of the ex Benedictine Monastery

Lunch was served al fresco in one of the two Palladian courtyards

Renata Codello and Giacomo Zamprogno

 Federica Marangoni and Lorenzo Marangoni

Cristina Beltrami, Jean Blancheart, Adriano Berengo and Katrina Panferova

Chiarastella Cattana and Rosy Kahane

Milly Passigli and Daniela Ferretti

Caterina Tognon and Maria Grazia Rosin

Valentina Ivancich, Dri and Adele Re Rebaudengo

Justine and Hugues Le Gallais with Claudine Ries

Franco Raggi and Daniela Giussani

Leslie Genninger

Marta Sforni and Domitilla Harding

Gaby Wagner and Gianfranco Ditadi

Giulia and Vettor Marcello

Camilla Purdon and Luciano Gambero

Jean Michel Ribettes, Kimiko Yoshida and Alessandro Tusset

Bangla Begum and Giorgio Mastinu

 

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Venice Biennale Preview - Fondazione dell'Albero d'Oro - Patrick Saytour. Le Pli et Le Temps / La Piega e il Tempo

 "... unfolding through folds, burnings, and unstable surfaces, where Saytour's material research encounters Piero Manzoni’s conceptual ‘reduction’ -‘azzeramento’ - giving shape to a radical dialogue on gesture and time." 

Venice Biennale Preview  

Fondazione dell'Albero d'Oro - Palazzo Vendramin Grimani

Patrick Saytour. Le Pli et Le Temps / La Piega e il Tempo

At Palazzo Vendramin Grimani on the Canal Grande at the Fondazione dell'Albero d'Oro - the exhibition - Patrick Saytour. Le Pli et le temps / La Piega e il Tempo - Fold and Time - until November 22 - curated by Daniela Ferretti. It is the first exhibition in Italy dedicated to French artist - Patrick Saytour - unfolding through folds, burnings, and unstable surfaces, where the artist's material research encounters Piero Manzoni’s conceptual ‘reduction’ -  azzeramento - giving shape to a radical dialogue on gesture and time.

The exhibition brings together works shaped through folds, cuts, burning, tearing, solarisation, stitching, and manipulation of textiles. These processes form a visual language rooted in both material presence and the passage of time. 

Important series include Plié/Déplié, where folded and unfolded fabrics become records of gesture and memory, and Repliés and Brûlages, where shadows, scars, and marks remain visible on the surface.

“Surfaces that refuse to be fixed in a single form.”

Patrick Saytour - 1935–2023 - was one of the leading figures of the French Supports/Surfaces and one of the key protagonists of the French Pictorial Experimentation movement, which emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group challenged traditional ideas of painting by focusing on material, structure, gesture, and process rather than representation and all united by theoretical debate and an engagement in unconventional exhibition strategies that they practiced together. 

“The works inhabit the space, revealing its folds, layers, and temporalities.”

Rather than acting as a simple backdrop, Palazzo Vendramin Grimani becomes an active presence within the exhibition. Its decorated rooms, stucco details, historic floors, and views over the Canal Grande create a setting that responds directly to Saytour’s work.  The relationship between the palace and the artworks highlights themes of memory, permanence, fragility, and time.

Each room is a threshold, an experience in which the work must be perceived before it is looked at. Numerous series trace the artist’s trajectory, such as Plié/Déplié, which present themselves as archives of time, draperies that recount the memory of gestures and matter. The fold becomes a metaphor for ethics capable of embracing complexity, imperfection and irregularity.

A carefully selected group of works on paper forms the secret heart of the exhibition. It is on paper that the artist concentrates and distils his energy—minimal vibrations, swift cuts, light traces that reveal the inexhaustible vitality of the gesture. Each sheet preserves the outcomes of a research that never reaches a final point. Far from being marginal, these works trace a silent geography that offers visitors the chance to enter the artist’s inner laboratory.

Curator - Daniela Ferretti

The decorated rooms of Palazzo Vendramin Grimani, the views over the Canal Grande, the stuccoes, the floors, the building’s very architecture, become both frame and counterpoint for fabrics that are folded, burned, or left in the sun. 

Palazzo Vendramin Grimani is an emblematic building of the Venetian Renaissance, now managed and brought to life by the Fondazione dell’Albero d’Oro. Committed to an exacting programme of restoration, research, and knowledge-sharing, the foundation aims to make this palace a vibrant place for reflection and creation, open to the public and to international exchange.

Secretary General - Fondazione dell'Alberto d'Oro - Beatrice de Reynies

Patrick Saytour.  Le Pli et le temps / La Piega e il Tempo

 

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