A creative challenge that takes place in an old furnace

Housed in the rough and charming rooms of Fondazione Berengo Art Space, an old abandoned furnace transformed a few years ago into an evocative exhibition space, the collective curated by Adriano Berengo and Koen Vanmechelen with the contribution of Ludovico Pratesi, offers a path that investigates the thousand facets of contemporary art, here put to the test.

The challenge is to generate a glass art that is the expression of a magical alchemy, capable of bringing an unprecedented creative leap to the potential of a material that comes from fire and to an ancient manual wisdom handed down for generations.

Fragility and rebirth

The central theme of Glasstress 2022 is fragility, that of glass, that of the complicated times in which we live, the physical but above all the mental. The purpose of the State of mind exhibition, the seventh edition of the project born in 2019 to promote new connections between contemporary art and glass, is repair, restoration, rebirth.

Glass frees itself from stereotypes

Stimulated to search for new languages, the artists involved demonstrated how glass is truly capable of freeing itself from stereotypes and finding new ways of expression.

The artists involved

The exhibition brings together the works of many artists, including those who have already exhibited at Glasstress, such as Jimmie Durham, Tony Cragg, Monira Al Qadiri, Sean Scully, Thomas Schütte, Massimo Lunardon, Federica Marangoni and first-time attendees such as, among others, Vanessa Beecroft, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Paloma Varga Weisz, eL Seed.

The unexplored roads of glass

“It makes me immensely proud to be able to show the incredible variety of sculptures created by contemporary artists and made in collaboration with our glass masters” explains Adriano Berengo, president of Berengo Studio and of the Berengo Foundation.

“Glass has always had a special meaning for Murano and, on the occasion of the United Nations Year of Glass, we are proud to underline how the unlimited creative abilities of this material continue to take unexplored new paths”.

The masters at work

Glasstress - State of mind also offers visitors some special occasions to observe Murano glass masters all work in the adjacent glass blowing studio, a millenary art that the Berengo Foundation is committed to defending, preserving and revitalizing precisely through the synergies put in place with contemporary artists.