Whitewall daily

“Glass Stress,” an exhibition that celebrates the use of glass in contemporary art, opens this week as a collateral event of the Venice Biennale. Work by Josef Albers, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg, Dan Graham, Lino Tagliapietra, and Lucien Fabro have been brought together by Venice Projects, an organization founded by Adriano Berengo that has been bringing together artists and glass masters for two decades. Nearly half of the exhibition will be commissioned work by artists working with glass for the first time. Through Venice Projects, Berengo hopes to link the Venetian art glass movement of the fifties to the Biennale, while securing glass as a respectable material for contemporary artists to use. We spoke with Berengo on a recent trip to New York about his pitch to contemporary artists and why glass has been negatively associated with craft and function.

WHITEWALL: What is a typical reaction when you approach an artist to work with glass. Are there certain artists that you approach because you think they might work better with it?

ADRIANO BERENGO: I work better with painters. You know why? Because painters are, at least at the beginning, more flexible. A sculptor normally make pieces himself so he is more aware. Whereas the painter, when he sees the transformation of a flat surface into a tri-dimensional sort of thing, he is amazed. So, how do I choose the artist? Some artists have overcome their prejudices [about glass] and they approach me. I will also approach artists. This is the most difficult part of the job: to convince them that glass could be a medium for their expression. Sometimes, I succeed, sometimes I fail but in general now, they approach me. I think that it’s very interesting that in the art world the use of glass is becoming more and more frequent and more and more important. I don’t want to say that I am responsible for this, but I think I have contributed a little bit to this.

WW: How many artists were commissioned specifically for the show?

AB: I think 50%. Every time for me is a new experience. It’s a fascinating experience.

WW: So the artist comes up with a concept, you pair them with a glass master, and let them run with it?

AB: Well, whatever they have in mind and whatever is feasible of course. But I think that an intelligent artist pretty soon understands the possibility and the limitations of the medium.

WW: Why does glass have a bad reputation? Why isn’t it used by as many artists? Do you think artists are turned off because of it’s ties to “craft”?

AB: Yes, because glass is such an old material that has been frequently used for decorative purposes and for functional purposes. You make a chandelier in glass, we drink out of glass. That known function of decorative things has created, in my opinion, an obstacle to the use of it. But look at what happened to photography. At the beginning, all the attention was on the medium. But pretty soon we realized that the camera was not enough. There was a concept behind it. So photography became very popular. I think that the more glass is used by artists, the more this barrier, this reluctance, this resistance will disappear. I think that glass will be one of the noble materials for contemporary artists.