EMPATHIC DISCOVERING A GLASS LEGACY by Luca Nichetto and the threat to Murano glass art

EMPATHIC by Luca Nichetto and the threat to Murano glass art

EMPATHIC

DISCOVERING A GLASS LEGACY

by Luca Nichetto

and the threat to Murano glass art

11 September to 10 April 2022

16 October 2021

©Empathic - BenjaminHubert-Granule

Luca Nichetto curates the exhibition "Empathic - Discovering a Glass Legacy" at the Punta Conterie Gallery in Venice (from 11 September to 10 April 2022). The exhibition features the works of eight international designers, all of which were produced in the glass workshops of Murano. Emphatic is the fourth exhibition of the Punta Conterie in its efforts to give the tradition and beauty of Murano craftsmanship its place, to strengthen it for the future and to encourage artists to enter the profession. Nichetto challenged each designer to come up with pieces that required different and sometimes new production methods, that tested the craftsmanship of the Murano maestros and that defied tradition and their skill. The result is eight pieces as diverse as the origins and cultural backgrounds of their designers. Nichetto, who was born in Murano views his island from an international perspective.

Empathic as the innate ability to generate involvement, identification, participation. Luca Nichetto has chosen this adjective to describe his exhibition, which deals with the attraction of matter and form.

A THREAT FOR MURANO GLASS ART

Glassblowing in Murano is currently struggling as more and more furnaces are being shut down. According to Nichetto, Murano maestros are "used" like mere parts of an industrial mechanism and not appreciated or supported for their immense and often exclusive knowledge of a precious and ephemeral heritage.

He says that there is a danger that the essential elements of Murano glass art will be lost and that with less experimentation and research, the skills will also disappear. Some techniques have already been forgotten, he says, as have some manual skills that were common in Murano until thirty years ago. Nichetto says that knowledge is not passed on, with the exception of some maestros who take on an apprentice on their own. There is still no school for master glassblowers in Venice, and each glassblower is too unique in his art for a purely theoretical education to be easily conceivable.

That is why the Emphatic exhibition is an important step and the great response has shown that Murano can still be a living centre of glassblowing in the world. Nichetto believes that his exhibition can be an incentive for local companies to open up more and more to the outside world and to external artists and customers, or even to rediscover past practices that were disappearing.

On display in EMPATHIC are limited edition installations and pieces by: Ini Archibong, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, GamFratesi, Benjamin Hubert, Richard Hutten, Luca Nichetto, Elena Salmistraro, Marc Thorpe.

The artists

©Empathic

Photo: ©RobertaOrio

EXHIBITED WORKS

©Empathic - Richard Hutten-Layered

LAYERED

Richard Hutten

Experiments with pure colour layering for Richard Hutten, a designer who has made irony, positivity and play the matrix of his project.

The verticality of Totem Layered thus becomes a hymn to the joy of life: layered, diverse, intense.

AFRICA

Ini Archibong

„The piece I designed for Empathic fits perfectly into my research: the great themes of the origin of our individual
and collective sensitivity, of our near and distant roots, are so complex that they can only be told through stories

and summaries that sometimes only projects can express.“

Ini Archibong

©Empathic - Elena Salmistraro - Medusa

MEDUSA

Elena Salmistraro

The feminine, colourful mirror by Elena Salmistraro is inspired by the sinuous movement of Gorgon serpents. A mirror that highlights the beauty it reflects while simultaneously petrifying the viewer. Medusa is an inventory of the ancient techniques

and processes of Murano mirror making, but in a contemporary key.

©Empathic - Luca Nichetto - Mecha

MECHA

Luca Nichetto

Luca Nichetto, who has glass and Murano in his DNA, plays with tradition by drawing on stories from childhood - especially Goldrake - to bring Mecha to life, three small modern colourful glass robots reminiscent of icons in stainless and glittering armour. This is the essence of Antithesis, the wonder of creativity.

"I believe that the beauty of Empathic cannot be expressed by a single piece, but by the fact that the creation process had the sole intention of supporting Murano glass. And I like to think that we are also part of the rich tradition of designers who have worked with Murano glass over the years - names like Carlo Scarpa, Ettore Sottsass, without forgetting contemporary artists like Jeff Koons.... to forget."

Luca Nichetto

©Empathic - Gam Fratesi - Palafit

PALAFIT

Gam Fratesi

The project finds inspiration in the origins of Venice and its foundation. A foundation of a city not only physical but as a metaphor for an element that imposes itself on space, in order to manifest the freedom of human expression. It is on these wooden poles that an unprecedented culture and craftsmanship has developed, and right on each individual pole, every single building has identified a unique and personal place.

©Empathic - Marc Thorpe - La Famiglia

LA FAMIGLIA

Marc Thorpe

La Famiglia is designed as a limited-edition collection of five vessels exclusively for Empathic.

The vessels pay tribute to the heritage and craft of glass blowing with each individual base left in its naturally rounded form.

Exclusive canes produced on Murano were used to accentuate the linear expansion of the glass.

©Empathic - Benjamin Hubert - Granule

GRANULE

Benjamin Hubert

The Granule collection comprises three large vessels that celebrate the rich tradition of Murano glassworking and the talent and knowledge of the Maestros.

Each piece is crafted using a variety of different traditional techniques to showcase the diverse characteristics inherent in glass as a materia

l and they are balanced to create an abstract composition.

INVOLVED MURANO ARTISANS

Vetreria Nuova Biemmeci di Mattiello Stefano

Panizzi Eugenio

Vetreria Simone Cenedese

Vetreria Ercole Moretti

Vetreria Effetre Murano

Vetreria Anfora

Vetreria Davide Salvadore

Vetreria Amadi Fabiano

Vetreria Nuova Resanese