RADICAL

A project by Penzo+Fiore

Curated by Daniele Capra | Matteo Bergamini | Pietro Gaglianò| Lorenzo Balbi

07.12.2018 – 18.01.2020

Palazzo Franchetti, Venice

December 7, 2018 marks the start of the new project by Fondazione Berengo to be held in Palazzo Franchetti. A cycle of contemporary art exhibitions aimed at research, based on the strength of contents and related to glass only from a conceptual and metaphorical perspective. The title: Radical. Radical. Relating to the roots, to the intimate essence of something. Radical. Change that aims to modify an order or an institution, from the foundations.

Fondazione Berengo was established to give space and exposure to the glass-contemporary art relationship, a language that over the years it has been able to master and practice with skill and sensibility. Research in this sense is strictly tied to the Berengo Studio furnace, but it has never limited its scope to glass made on Murano; instead, it has opened itself up to collaboration, experimentation and exchange. If on the one hand it has the ability to catalyze the attention of artists the likes of Monica Bonvicini, Tony Cragg, Erwin Wurm, Mona Hatoum, Jaume Plensa, and others, on the other, with this project the Fondazione wishes to fill a gap created by the lack of space dedicated to contemporary art research.

Radical, Fondazione Berengo’s new project, wants to push the limits even further, drawing attention to what the world of glass has not yet pinpointed: the art of research, the art of today, represented by skilled artists of substance who can relate to the material from a metaphorical and conceptual perspective. That’s why the Radical exhibitions do not see themselves in glass, but rather, characterized by more typically contemporary languages, from installation to video art, painting to performance, and so forth. The exhibition cycle that will be held at Fondazione Berengo strives to be irreverent, determined, courageous, but above all meaningful and necessary.

Penzo+Fiore, the project’s artistic directors, write: “The general guidelines are the characteristics we may attribute to the material: glass is unforgiving. While crafting it you have to respect its times; it’s a fragile and precious material, precious because it’s fragile; a material where there can be no half measures. You must know how to manage it with intention, so that nothing is ruined. Glass is a sincere, transparent yet opaque and enigmatic material. Constantly challenged by the force of gravity, constantly risking being burned. We want the Radical exhibitions to be like this—direct, straightforward, provocative if necessary, certain, groundbreaking. We want them to face important topics head-on, giving the present a lesson in style, to observe and redefine through militant artistic practices. The choice of this initial curating pool aims to be the first guarantee underlying a project that can trace a horizon, a vision. We’ll open on December 7 with Daniele Capra, in March with Matteo Bergamini, and in June with Pietro Gaglianò.”

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Fondazione Berengo

San Marco 2847
30124 Venezia - Italy

+39 041.739453
comunicazione@berengo.com

 

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