Ai Weiwei unveils first-ever exhibition of glass sculptures in Venice
On the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Ai Weiwei unveils his first show of glass works, including one of the largest Murano glass sculptures ever
![Portrait of ai weiwei ahead of venice exhibition glass sculpture](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/HF5Xz3Q4nEqehAaZW8hGm-415-80.jpg)
Ai Weiwei is known for many things; glass, until now, has not been one of them. But a major show in Venice is putting the artist’s first-ever sculptures in glass centre stage, following a three-year project conceived in Murano. As Ai said of the material, ‘Glass, a special material and a part of our daily life, bears witness to joy, anxiety and worry in our reality. In its presence, we reflect upon the relationships between life and death, and between tradition and reality.’
Running alongside the 59th Venice Art Biennale and created in collaboration with Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore-Benedicti Claustra Onlus, Berengo Studio and Fondazione Berengo, the exhibition uses expertly crafted glass to convey the radical, subversive themes for which Ai is best known: increasingly fragile, polarised societies, ever-fraught relationship with natural ecosystems, and the darker, lesser documented corners of history.
Installation view of Ai Weiwei's glass sculpture La Commedia Umana at Venice’s Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore. Photography: Francesco Allegretto
Against the dramatic setting of Venice’s Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, the show’s pièce de résistance is La Commedia Umana, a 9m-high suspended sculpture involving 2,000 pieces of black glass handcrafted by the maestros of Berengo Studio in Murano. The twisting, cascading chandelier-like sculpture – one of the largest hanging sculptures made in Murano glass in living history – is a sinister theatre of objects including bones, organs, bats and surveillance cameras.
‘This vast hanging sculpture in black glass defies definition, nothing like it has ever really been seen or realised before. Part of its beauty is it remains a mystery, a human tragedy, a comedy, a tangled mess that we each must seek to unwind in our own time,’ Adriano Berengo, founder of Berengo Studio and Fondazione Berengo, said in a statement. ‘It is a work that stirs emotions, that forces us to come to terms not only with our own mortality but with the part our lives have to play in the greater theatre of human history.’
RELATED STORY
La Commedia Umana, which debuted in Rome earlier this year, sits alongside eight new glass works, including Brainless Figure in Glass, 2022, a self-portrait conceived through modern technology and manual sculpting, and everyday objects, such as Glass Takeout Box, 2022, a symbol of globalisation (first created as a marble piece in 2015), and Glass Toilet Paper, 2022. As well as the artist’s glass debut, the show also features some of the artist’s greatest, and most recent hits in porcelain, wood and Lego.
A film chronicles the installation of Ai Weiwei's glass sculpture La Commedia Umana in Venice
Detail of La Commedia Umana by Ai Weiwei
Top and above, details from La Commedia Umana by Ai Weiwei
Installation view of Ai Weiwei, 'La Commedia Umana – Memento Mori' at Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore. Photography: Francesco Allegretto
Installation view of Ai Weiwei, 'La Commedia Umana – Memento Mori' at Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore. Photography: Francesco Allegretto
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Ai Weiwei, 'La Commedia Umana – Memento Mori' runs from 28 August - 27 November 2022 at Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore.
ADDRESS
Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore
Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
30124 Venezia
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
‘Personal Structures’ in Venice is about ‘artists breaking free’
‘Personal Structures 2024: Beyond Boundaries’ reveals a rich tapestry of perspectives on the challenges of our time, from culture to climate and identity
By Nargess Banks Published
-
Enter the immersive world of film noir at a disused hospital in Venice
Fondazione In Between Art Film returns to Venice with ‘Nebula’, by curators Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
‘I just don't like eggs!’: Andrea Fraser unpacks the art market
Artist Andrea Fraser’s retrospective ‘I just don't like eggs!’ at Fondazione Antonio dalle Nogare, Italy, explores what really makes the art market tick
By Sofia Hallström Published
-
Alternate worlds and end of days: Pierre Huyghe in Venice
Pierre Huyghe delves into dystopia with 'Liminal', at Palazzo Grassi’s Punta della Dogana in Venice
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Josèfa Ntjam on her surreal utopias in Venice
Artist Josèfa Ntjam and LAS Art Foundation bring other worlds to life with ‘swell of spæc(i)es’ at Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia during the Venice Biennale 2024
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Les Lalanne’s surreal world takes over Venice
‘Planète Lalanne’, presented by Ben Brown Fine Arts, takes over Palazzo Rota Ivancich, with a cast of blue hippos, woolly sheep and giant grasshoppers
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Aindrea Emelife on bringing the Nigerian Pavilion to life at the Venice Biennale 2024
Curator Aindrea Emelife has spearheaded a new wave of contemporary artists at the Venice Biennale’s second-ever Nigerian Pavilion. Here, she talks about what the world needs to learn about African art
By Ugonna-Ora Owoh Published
-
Berlinde De Bruyckere’s angels without faces touch down in Venice church
Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere’s recent archangel sculptures occupy the 16th-century white marble Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore for the Venice Biennale 2024
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published