The 2024 edition of “Glasstress” by the Berengo Foundation opened in Venice last weekend. On the island of Murano, the center of Venetian glassmaking since the 13th century, glass exhibitions and installations by various artists, curated by Umberto Croppi, can be viewed (and purchased) until November 24, 2024.
Robert Wilson’s newest glass creation, in collaboration with the glass masters of Berengo Studio, was inspired by a pair of Chinese ceramic figurines from the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD): two acrobats kneeling and balancing pottery jars on their arms. At the same time, with their outstretched arms, they seem on the verge of fighting each other. Indeed, acrobatics in the Han Dynasty included juggling and martial arts, and even some ancient Chinese warriors were trained in both.
In a rare figurative approach, Wilson and the Berengo Studio contemplated on these Han acrobats, and—instead of ceramics, using glass with its fascinating lightness and heaviness at once—created a series of unique pairs of “Wrestlers.” The Wrestlers appear more performative than sculptural in their palpable readiness to move and strike.
