For some time now, an interesting event has been lighting up (literally) in Venice: Murano illumina il mondo (Murano illuminates the world), which returns this year for its third edition, and the city feigns surprise, as it always does, but in reality seems to have known for a while that when twelve international artists and designers decide to join forces with the most celebrated furnaces of the island, something irremediable happens. It’s glass, an ancient and capricious material, that returns to speak with a new voice beneath the Procuratie Vecchie: no longer chandeliers, or not only, but suspended creatures that transform the air itself. The Scientific Committee has selected twelve artists to take the idea of the chandelier, squeeze it until it creaks, and bring it to become something else.
“TransFormation”, artist Deborah Czeresko, masters glassmakers Giorgio Valentini, Claudio Zama and Massimiliano Schiavon + Wili Bardella (grinder), Massimiliano Schiavon Art Team furnace. Photo: Giorgio Bombieri
Thus Simone Crestani, with Berengo Studio, creates a flowering branch that crosses through the classic form of the chandelier, destabilizing it and then recomposing it, transforming Primavera d’Oriente (Spring of the East) into an organism that seems to have grown rather than been constructed. Ru Xiao Fan imagines a cage in which some birds stay and others escape, doing so together with Effetre and Seguso Gianni, creating Intérieur/Extérieur, a suspended reflection on courage and the invisible cages we all inhabit without realizing it. Joana Vasconcelos, with Berengo Studio, doesn’t even try to be discreet: Cuore Infinito (Infinite Heart) pulses, vibrates, seems like a real heart that has found refuge under the arches of the square. Lucio Bubacco instead builds a sort of celestial orchestra: thirty arms, fifty angels, Musica Angelica, a work that develops on three levels like a stairway toward a luminous elsewhere.
“Gust of Wind”, by artist Kimiko Yoshida, master glassmaker Gianni Seguso, Seguso Gianni Murano furnace. Photo: Giorgio Bombieri
Chahan Minassian with Nicola Moretti Murano chooses the opposite: Acqua Rings is essential and fluid, overlapping discs that recall the circles on water when you throw a stone and for a moment the world opens up. Michela Cattai and Simone Cenedese look at the tides and transform their rhythms into glass with Trama di Luce (Weave of Light). F. Taylor Colantonio, together with Signoretto e Salvadore, mixes archive and imagination for Pool of Light, a ray of sunshine trapped in a lagoon vortex. Massimo Micheluzzi gives life to Calamaro (Squid), a chandelier that is also an animal, a glass tentacle that seems to move even though it cannot. Christian Pellizzari with Salviati puts together ancient Rezzonico techniques and ultra-modern micro-LEDs for Nature Rebirth, a work that speaks of cycles and fragility. Irene Cattaneo with Amadi builds miniature moons for The Observatory. And finally the Scuola Abate Zanetti with Eros Raffael signs Life’s Meaning, a choral chandelier made of leaves and blue filaments that tell of time and the continuity of life.
“Venetian Wavebreakers Chandelier”, artist Hans Weigand, master glassmaker Nicola Causin, Berengo Studio furnace. Photo: Giorgio Bombieri
All the works have been designed with surgical attention: weights, measurements, structures, because here what’s fragile is not only the glass, but also the place that hosts them. Supporting all this is a complex system – the Municipality of Venice, The Venice Glass Week, Chamber of Commerce, Civic Museums, Fondazione Cini, Pentagram Stiftung, Istituto Veneto, Promovetro Murano, Bevilacqua La Masa – and even Caffè Lavena, sponsor of the inauguration, almost as a reminder that in this city even a coffee can be a cultural act. In a world where lighting has become a matter of screens and devices, it’s comforting to think that twelve chandeliers born from hands, breath, fire, and patience can still transform an entire square. Sometimes, to change a city or at least its mood, you just need to light up something that has never been seen before.
Info:
AA.VV., Murano illuminates the world 2025
21/11/2025 – 1/03/2026
Piazza San Marco, Venezia
www.comune.venezia.it
Independent artist and curator. Founder of No Title Gallery in 2011. I observe, study, ask questions, take informations and live in contemporary art, a real stimulus for my research.
NO COMMENT