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

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
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
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.
-
Beach chic: the all-new Citroën Ami gets an acid-tinged, open-air Buggy variant
Citroën have brought a dose of polychromatic playfulness to their new generation Ami microcar, the cult all-ages electric quadricycle that channels the spirit of the 2CV for the modern age
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Rosewood Miyakojima: ‘Japan, but not as most people know it’
Rosewood Miyakojima offers a smooth balance of intuitive Japanese ‘omotenashi’ fused with Rosewood’s luxury edge
-
Thrilling, demanding, grotesque and theatrical: what to see at Berlin Gallery Weekend
Berlin Gallery Weekend is back for 2025, and with over 50 galleries taking part, there's lots to see
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park
‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Ai Weiwei's major retrospective in Seattle is a timely and provocative exploration of human rights
'Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism' of Ai Weiwei is on now at the Seattle Art Museum
-
Saskia Colwell’s playful drawings resemble marble sculptures
Saskia Colwell draws on classical and modern references for ‘Skin on Skin’, her solo exhibition at Victoria Miro, Venice
-
Remembering Oliviero Toscani, fashion photographer and author of provocative Benetton campaigns
Best known for the controversial adverts he shot for the Italian fashion brand, former art director Oliviero Toscani has died, aged 82
-
Distracting decadence: how Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy shaped Italian TV
Stefano De Luigi's monograph Televisiva examines how Berlusconi’s empire reshaped Italian TV, and subsequently infiltrated the premiership
-
Louis Fratino leans into queer cultural history in Italy
Louis Fratino’s 'Satura', on view at the Centro Pecci in Italy, engages with queer history, Italian landscapes and the body itself
-
Don't miss Luxembourg's retro-futuristic lab pavilion in Venice
As the Venice Biennale enters its last few weeks, catch 'A Comparative Dialogue Act' at the Luxembourg Pavilion
-
Portrait of a modernist maverick: last chance to see the Jean Cocteau retrospective in Venice
‘Cocteau: The Juggler’s Revenge’, celebrating the French artist's defiance of artistic labels, is in its final week at Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice