contessanally: #TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards + Party Photos

"...the artist’s talent, combined with her passion for nature, results in works of exceptional realism and exquisite grace. The refined lampworking technique reaches hyper-realistic levels in Lilla Tabasso’s hands, whilst still maintaining a profound emotional impact."

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards

Premio Fondazione di Venezia

The Venice Glass Week's 2024 - Premio Fondazione di Venezia - was awarded to the exhibition Fior di Tabasso. Le stagioni al Florian, organized by Caffe Florian, Daniela Vedaldi Gaddo, and Caterina Tognon - curated by Stefano Stipitivich, featuring works by Lilla Tabasso, inspired by Caffe Florian's Room of Seasons, the show highlights her hyper-realistic compositions using traditional Venetian caffe objects. The Jury praised Tabasso's exceptional talent, blending a passion for nature with refined lampworking techniques to create emotionally impactful and exquisitely graceful works.

The Jury of the Premio Fondazione di Venezia, was composed of Jean Blanchaert - curator and member of the Curatorial Committee - Giovanna Palandri - Chancellor of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti and President of the festival’s Organising Committee - and Paola Marini - General Councillor of the Fondazione di Venezia.

The Winner - Premio Fondazione di Venezia

Lilla Tabasso

"Every day, as has been the case for decades, the bar counter at Caffè Florian is decorated with fresh flowers. Well, I would very much love to replace them with Lilla Tabasso’s hyperrealistic creations as an innocent joke at the expense of Florian’s patrons as they visit for their nightly spritz. We all know that the idea for the Venice Art Biennale was born here, and for this reason, since the 1980s we have been turning a public venue, our coffee house, into an art gallery."

Stefano Stipitivich

Caffè Florian Art Director

Lilla Tabasso - Fior di Tabasso - Le Stagioni al Florian

For her solo show at Caffè Florian, Lilla Tabasso created glass compositions dedicated to the Room of Seasons painted by Cesare Rota around mid XIX century.

Lilla Tabasso - Fior di Tabasso - Le Stagioni al Florian

photograph courtesy - The Venice Glass Week

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards

Premio Fondazione di Venezia - Special Jury Prize

The Jury of the Premio Fondazione di Venezia also awarded an unprecedented Special Jury Prize to Dylan Katz‘s solo exhibition, 61. 5°N, curated by Costanza Longanesi Cattani, for the formal, aesthetic and technical research and energy invested in the realisation of this important project.

Balanced on a pedestal in the heart of Venice, what appears to be blocks of ice stand, unmelting in the heat. Uncanny Ice uses the power of art and the raw beauty of glass to spark an emotional response. Drawing upon both the similarities and stark differences between glass and ice, these pieces compel the viewer to reflect on the relationship between man and nature.

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards - Special Recognitions

Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia - Convito di Vetro

A Special Recognition was awarded to - Convito di Vetro - the installation curated by Sung Moon Cho and organised by the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia with the sponsorship of Pentagram Stiftung: the exhibition is an example of curatorship becoming a work of art, accompanied by a valuable small scale catalogue.

Director of Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia Giulio Manieri Elia, curator Sung Moon Cho and Pentagram Stiftung's David Landau

The installation - Convito di Vetro - The Glass Banquet - until November 3 - at the Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia - curated by Sung Moon Cho. The intent is to showcase the aesthetic evolution and technological innovation of Murano glass, through the display of a banquet table set with a selection of wine, beverage, and liquor services, created in Murano from the 1920s to the present day thanks to the creativity of artists and designers.

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards - Special Recognitions

Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia - Convito di Vetro

Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia - Convito di Vetro

Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia - Convito di Vetro

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards - Special Recognitions

Simone Crestani & Ioannis Michalou(di)S. - S.O.S-Save Our Sky

Simone Crestani & Ioannis Michalou(di)S. - S.O.S-Save Our Sky exhibited at The Venice Glass Week HUB at Palazzo Loredan: the glass works created by Crestani to contain Michaliou(di)s’ clouds are witty sculptures reminiscent of those created by Fulvio Bianconi for the Commedia dell’arte. Also thanks to this work, we can intuit that glass is playing an increasingly important role in science and technology.

Ioannis Michalou(di)S. and Simone Crestani

photograph - Enrico Fiorese - courtesy The Venice Glass Week

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards - Special Recognitions

Alexander Kirkeby - Ceremony

Special Recognition to the exhibition Ceremony by Alexander Kirkeby, exhibited at Casa YALI. The Jury was struck by the remarkable technical mastery of this young Danish artist, sees him projected towards a future as bright as his works. In his first solo show in Venice - Ceremony - features intricate glass objects handcrafted by the artist in his Aarhus studio. Kirkeby’s works challenge traditional norms of proportion, scale, and balance, blending precise craftsmanship with the chaotic nature of glass. Archetypal forms merge traditional glass-making techniques with distorted aesthetics, resulting in functional, tactile, and contemporary pieces that shift from classic to deformed shapes.

Johanne Marie Jensen and Alexander Kirkeby

photographs Massimo Pistore - courtesy The Venice Glass Week

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards - Special Recognitions

Collective Exhibition Nature/AI - Palazzo Contarini Polignac

Special Recognitions to the collective exhibition Nature/Al at Palazzo Contarini Polignac: around the table, adorned with artistic glass centrepieces and in a Peter Greenaway-style atmosphere, figures from all over the glass world met for one significant evening in dialogue with each other: scholars, artists, curators, and enthusiasts. The collective ephemeral exhibition conceived for a dinner table to be admired and enjoyed for one night alone. It is both a retrospective of those glass artists shown at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac until this year and a very natural unfolding. Nature - the theme of the dining table, is the common thread among the artists.

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Autonoma Residency Prize

Yue Wu - The Nine Dragons Plate

The young Chinese artist Yue Wu, who was participating in The Venice Glass Week HUB Under35 with the installation - The Nine Dragons Plate - was awarded the fifth edition of the Autonoma Residency Prize, which enables him to undertake an Artistic Residency at the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle - USA - in 2025. On behalf of Laguna~B, promoter of the Prize, Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda commented that the nine Dragons have been decorative motifs associated with emperors since antiquity. Often, the nine Dragons were embroidered in emperors’ robes, engraved in weapons and architecture. Yue Wu has succeeded in recreating this ancient and powerful scene on a crystal disc, The Nine Dragons Plate. The extraordinary translucent carving technique blurs the notion of time and takes us back through the centuries, and the beauty of this work leaves the viewer speechless.

#TheVeniceGlassWeek 2024 - Awards - Special Recognitions

Fratelli Toso 170th | 1854 – 2024

Vetro inciso della Laguna

A special Recognition also went to Fratelli Toso 170th | 1854 – 2024 organised by Fratello Toso, for the quality of the works set in a highly atmospheric environment and the narration of the past through a contemporary lens.

A Special Recognition to the exhibition Vetro inciso della Laguna, organised by the Comitato Vetri di Laguna in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, for the diachronic journey through the history of glass engraving: a two-venue exhibition which allows us to observe different techniques and cold working processes from the eighteenth century to the present day.

#TheVeniceGlass Week 2024 - Party Photos

The Courtyard - Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello

In the monumental courtyards - lit in fiery red - Palazzo Pisani - home to the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello - The Venice Glass Week's organising committee held it's annual party for the festivals participants, artists, partners and sponsors, celebrating the Art of Glass.